Archive for Books

Book Review: “Scouts” by Nobilis Reed

Warp drive. Hyperspeed. Folding space. Immersion. The Infinite Improbability Drive. Read five different pieces of science fiction and you’re guaranteed to find five different propulsion methods with five different names. But one thing I can guarantee* is that you’ve never seen a starship being powered the way Nobilis Reed does it in Scouts.

WARNING: Scouts is a novel for adults, and as a result the review contains discussions of explicit sex. Reader discretion is advised.

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Jeff VanderMeer Covers Finnish SF in Two Part Series

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer recently went to Finland to attend lectures and learn about the SFF community there. in a two-part blog series, Jeff talks about authors he met and the experience of interacting with SFF fandom in a country where the government actively supports the arts (including SFF!) communities.

Supported by that community, a number of unique Finnish writers are appearing on the scene—several of whom have been or will soon be translated into English. Two of the most prominent for readers in English this year are Johanna Sinisalo and Hannu Rajaniemi, both of whom, Halme notes, hail from small villages in northern Finland.

Birdbrain

Sinisalo, whose Birdbrain was published this April in the U.S., is a well-known figure in Finland, where she’s written teleplays, screenplays, and been involved in a stunning number of different creative projects. Including Birdbrain on my top 10 fantasy novels list for Locus Online, I wrote, “This slow-burn of a novel relates the story of Finns Jyrki and Heidi as they hike through the wilderness of Tasmania and New Zealand. Sinisalo immerses the reader in the physicality of the trek, and the increasing isolation of the hikers…the atmosphere created is exciting and the trip fascinating to watch play out. When the fantastical element finally enters the story it’s all the more effective because of the careful way in which Sinisalo has brought the reader to that point.”

Finnish Science Fiction and Fantasy: Johanna Sinisalo, Hannu Rajaniemi, and Moomins: Part One
Finnish SF and Fantasy: An Established Community, a Surge of Talent: Part Two

Book Review: “Blind Man’s Bluff” by Peter David

Warning: This review contains spoilers for previous New Frontier novels, most notably Treason.

Many a young Star Trek fan has imagined what it would be like to create a new ship and crew and take them on adventures around the galaxy. Many of those young fans make a start, and then give up when they realize that (a) carving out a chunk of a universe with established rules can be kind of difficult and (b) they’ll never sell their idea to CBS/Paramount/Simon & Schuster.

And then there’s novelist and comic-book author Peter David, who brought us Star Trek: New Frontier, carving out a chunk of a universe with established rules and selling the idea to his editors.

For fourteen years, David has been sharing with us the adventures of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun of the U.S.S. Excalibur — his unorthodox style, his unorthodox crew, his unorthodox worldview. In fact, if New Frontier had a single word to describe it, that word would be… well… unorthodox.

And in his latest New Frontier novel, Blind Man’s Bluff, he continues in the fast-paced adventure vein that his fans have come to enjoy.

To recap: in Treason, David’s previous New Frontier novel, the crew is introduced to a powerful new enemy, the D’myurj (sound it out) and their servants, the even-more-powerful armored soldiers who possess an Achilles heel in the form of a vent in said armor. They kill many people on Captain Mueller’s U.S.S. Trident, and generally wreak havoc on the galaxy, until Selar (first introduced in TNG’s “The Schizoid Man” as Dr. Crusher’s colleague) undergoes a Vulcan mental break known as “treason” and ends up destroying most — but not all — of the D’myurj in hopes of finding a way to save her son from what is essentially progeria. She succeeds, but the cost is her own life.

Blind Man’s Bluff picks up shortly after the events of Treason. It’s focused mostly on Calhoun, although there are notable appearances by the entire Excalibur crew, as well as some others. After paying a little lip service to the existence of Admiral Shelby, Captain Mueller, and those who died on the Trident, we find ourselves on Xenex, Calhoun’s home planet, where he is attempting to marshal his people into a guerilla force to fight off the Brethren. As the book continues, layers of the D’myurj/Brethren plot are peeled back and we find out exactly how Calhoun was marooned on Xenex and why he’s fighting in the first place.

The b-plot of the book is almost better-developed — and definitely easier to understand — than the a-plot. Morgan Primus, mother of Robin Lefler, became joined with the Excalibur’s computer system some books back. She is gaining power at a remarkable rate — rather like Barclay in “The Nth Degree” — and Calhoun realizes she’s becoming a danger not just to his ship but the entirety of Starfleet. Via Soleta, who you may remember now has her own spy ship, he enlists the help of Seven of Nine and The Doctor in a plot to get Morgan off his ship, once and for all.

As I said earlier, Blind Man’s Bluff is a fast-paced adventure story, which makes it a lot of fun to read. It also contracts its view somewhat, focusing only on the Excalibur (in recent novels, we’ve dealt with both the Excalibur and the Trident, as well as Space Station Bravo, and while David is perfectly capable of casting a wide net, it’s nice to get back to a smaller-scale story). He does bring back almost every character from the previous novels — at least, the ones who are alive (including Calhoun’s sons Xyon and Moke as well as Admirals Nechayev and Jellico) — but the story is really all about the main characters from the Excalibur. While Calhoun is off fighting on Xenex, his first officer Burgoyne and the rest of the gang — Calhoun, Tobias, Xyon (Burgy’s son, not Calhoun’s), and Mitchell must deal with Morgan.

While the novel did have its sticky points — the Nechayev plotline particularly confused me, and I really wasn’t expecting its resolution; also, it seemed as though too much time was spent on the crew of the Dauntless — David’s writing managed to keep me well and truly interested in everything that was going on. In addition, he hung a bit of a lampshade on his own writing style. In fact, there’s even a scene where Burgoyne laments the fact that everyone on Excalibur has their verbal responses set permanently on “sarcasm”. He does overplay Calhoun’s previously-stated tactical and combat skills to excess, perhaps to hang another lampshade, perhaps to help new readers understand just how powerful the Brethren actually are. Whichever it was, it really didn’t work for me. I guess it was necessary to make the hero more mortal, but he’s so immortal (thanks to the way he was written in the past) that there really wasn’t any other way.

David said in a recent interview that this might be the last New Frontier novel — his contract with the publisher is coming to a close and he hasn’t heard about any extensions or re-signings yet. It may be that he wanted to close the series with a bang, killing off another major Star Trek character — you may recall he also offed Admiral Janeway in Before Dishonor — but while I found the novel to be a good one, I wasn’t really satisfied by the ending. I feel like there’s a little more story to be told, and that a few loose ends remain to tie up. It’s not like a sequel hook; it’s like there’s a third book in a trilogy that’s waiting to be written. I hope it is.

In the foreword to Peter David’s Q-Squared, he says that some readers find his books quick reads, but this one will take longer because it’s more complicated. I finished it in one Saturday afternoon. Blind Man’s Bluff took about two-and-a-half hours, despite being 352 pages long. I’d say that fans of New Frontier, and even fans of Star Trek tie-ins, would enjoy this book. It’s not a book for new readers — especially given that there’s very few threads back to major characters in any series except Voyager — but despite my issues with it, it’s another stellar piece of Peter David Star Trek fiction, and I look forward to whatever comes next.

Note to Parents: This book contains occasional adult humor and an awful lot of violence. I don’t recall any sexual situations, although there is a scene of partial nudity. If your kids can handle Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, they’ll be able to handle this book, but if Khan’s mangled face gave them nightmares, you might want to skip this book for a while. Of course, you should use your own best judgment where your children are concerned.

Brave New Worlds, edited by John Joseph Adams

Brave New WorldsAnyone who is interested in the grim meathook side of the science fiction genre should pick up Brave New Worlds, the new anthology of dystopian fiction. Once again, John Joseph Adams has proved that he has a keen eye for a good story. These are not easy stories to read. Few of them have happy endings. However, I found them to be moving works of science fiction that will stay with me for a long time.

Dystopias have been part of science fiction since the beginning. Brave New Worlds opens with “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, which was first published in 1948 by The New Yorker. It is the kind of science fiction that provokes tempers on all sides. People within the genre criticize its lack of obvious scientificitional elements and its magazine of origin. Deborah Treisman, The New Yorker’s fiction editor, noted on her podcast that the magazine received angry letters from its readers after “The Lottery” was published. Treisman also pointed out that “The Lottery” is the only story by a woman of the period to be regularly anthologized.

Other classics that have been reprinted in Brave New Worlds include “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. This story should already be familiar to most readers, who will know exactly what to expect when they see Le Guin’s name on a collection of dystopias. However, in this context, it provides a respite for the mind’s eye. The world that Le Guin has built is beautiful — except for that singular, terrible room.

The new stories in Brave New Worlds are also of the highest quality. Carrie Vaughn’s “Amaryllis,” reprinted here, has just been nominated for the 2011 Hugo Award for best short story. “Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter’s Personal Account” by Mary Rickert first appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award and the Stoker Award. I have an abiding affection for this story, in which all the brutality of a world where women are executed for having abortions is filtered through the eyes of a little girl who has never known anything else.

Longtime listeners of EscapePod will recognize “Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs” by Adam Troy-Castro. This is the only story in the collection that I did not completely reread, as I remember how much it affected me the first time. It is, however, not the most brutal story in this book — and the argument over whether or not it even qualifies as a dystopia should be an interesting one.

The stories are grouped loosely by theme. J. G. Ballard’s overpopulation classic, “Billenium,” is followed immediately by “Amaryllis” and Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Pop Squad,” in which children are vanishingly rare. Silverberg’s “Caught in the Organ Draft,” about a world where the young are required to donate their organs so that the terribly old can get even older, stands back-to-back with Orson Scott Card’s heartbreaking “Geriatric Ward,” in which people grow old and die while still terribly young.

Brave New Worlds strikes me as being comprehensive enough to serve as reference book. It even includes a list of suggested reading at the end, for anyone who wants to pursue longer works of dystopian fiction. I recommend this anthology wholeheartedly — on a sunny day, and followed by something cheerful.

Book Review: “Ship Breaker” by Paolo Bacigalupi

Which side will you be on when the world ends? Will you be one of the haves, an employee (or, better still, owner) of one of the ten big companies that controls everything? Will you live in relative luxury, with good food and affordable health care, safe from the weather and the rising ocean?

Or will you be like Nailer, the main character of Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, who crawls through the passageways of long-dead ships, pulling old copper wire to fill his team’s quota so they get to eat for another day?

Ever since the success of Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl, I’ve been meaning to read both it and Ship Breaker. It turns out I finished the latter almost a year to the day since it was released. I’m not sure how it justifies the young adult tag it’s given — it’s brutal, bloody, violent, and depressing, and while I do think it’s a good book, it makes me wonder about what exactly comprises YA fiction these days.

In Ship Breaker, Nailer Lopez leads a very difficult life. About twelve years of age, his job is to collect wire from old oil tankers and other beached vessels in the southeastern United States. He’s on a team of similarly-aged individuals, under the command of the pragmatically-ruthless Bapi. The team collects wire for one of the few big companies that controls commerce worldwide. What’s worse, this is one of the best options for Nailer, who knows that once he’s too big to crawl through the old ships, he’ll have to work heavy crew (for which he’s too small) or do something even worse.

In addition to all of that, Nailer also has to deal with his father, the vicious drug-abusing pit fighter Richard Lopez. Perhaps that’s where the YA part comes from — despite everything Richard has done to Nailer, Nailer still apparently loves him. Or, at the very least, respects him for being his father, as well as for being able to beat the hell out of him.

After a large storm, a clipper ship — Nailer’s dream is to work on one of these large, clean vessels, sailing the oceans — is beached and Nailer and Pima (a member of his crew) go out to scavenge it before everyone else gets there and takes the good stuff. They find a survivor — and in true YA fashion, she is the daughter of someone important — and Nailer must choose whether to kill her now or save her in hopes of a bigger payday.

While the book hits all the YA tropes — rich daughter, rough main character, bad parent, hero’s journey, double-cross, big showdown at the end — where it really excels is in worldbuilding and characterization. Even the minor characters are well-rounded, from the dispassionate murderess Blue Eyes to the dog-men who work for Captain Candless. When someone is injured, the reader really feels his or her pain; when one is successful, such as when Nailer escapes death by drowning in oil, the reader joins in the jubilation.

And the world itself, a semi-near future where the oceans have risen and hurricanes can be Category Six, is compelling. Not a lot of it is shown because, to Nailer, it doesn’t really matter. There’s his beach, and there’s the Orleans, and there are some mentions of Houston and a melted Pole. That’s about it. But still we know that now-destroyed coastal cities are called “Orleans” — the newest of which is somewhere in Mississippi — and we know that corporations have pretty much free reign to do what they want. We know that the Chinese yuan (I don’t think it’s mentioned by name, so I’ll call it that) is the premier method of currency, and we know that genetic engineering has taken place to create dog-men who are devoutly loyal to their patrons.

In reading Ship Breaker, it’s plain to see why so many people are high on Bacigalupi’s writing. However, I didn’t adore this book in the way that I did the Terry Pratchett YA novels, or Harry Potter. It felt a little to me like the YA tropes were shoehorned into a story the author wanted to tell. Had the story been aimed at a more adult audience, or been of a wider scope, I probably would’ve enjoyed it more, but as a YA novel it just didn’t have the kind of oomph I was expecting given the accolades it’s received. There was too much “easy” stuff for me (as a writer and avid reader) to recognize, such as clear signposts which say “THIS IS IMPORTANT AND IT WILL COME BACK IN THE CLIMAX OF THE NOVEL, SO PAY ATTENTION”. That doesn’t take away from how good I think the book is — which is to say, “yes, it was a good book”. I definitely would read more adventures with these characters, and Windup Girl remains on my list.

If you like dystopian futures where corporations smash the downtrodden, who in turn smash each other, then this is a good book for you. If you enjoy contemporary-style YA dystopian fiction, you’ll like it. There’s no steampunk, no supernatural, almost no high technology, but what there is is so vivid that you’ll be drawn in even if you don’t care for the subgenre. It’s worth a read.

Note to Parents: This novel contains graphic violence and adult situations, though no sexual ones. I would recommend it for older teens, and younger ones who are mature enough to play MA-rated video games such as Call of Duty. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

Book Review: “Nascence” by Tobias S. Buckell

Other than the Sherlock Holmes omnibus and Neil Gaiman’s excellent Smoke and Mirrors, I haven’t really read any single-author short-story collections in… well… ever. I actually went upstairs and checked my shelves, and while I do have an Arthur C. Clarke collection and a Walter Jon Williams collection, I can’t remember ever reading them. I guess I like my short fiction in shorter installments than collection-length, or if I’m reading a collection I like many authors to be part of it, such as Year’s Best anthologies or themed collections.

So when our esteemed editor asked me to review Nascence, Tobias S. Buckell’s new book, I didn’t realize it was a collection until I started reading it. I thought it was a new novel. I wasn’t disappointed, mind; I’d just heard Buckell’s “Anakoinosis” on the Dunesteef and enjoyed it, so I figured, hey, this ought to be pretty good.

And it was. In a way.

Nascence is a collection for writers more than for casual readers. It has several stories, and also the story-behind-the-story that I think most of us enjoy reading. But where a collection by another author might collect his or her best stories, Nascence… doesn’t. In fact, Buckell explains that right in the beginning of the book.

Nascence contains 16 stories (one of them twice) that chronicle Buckell’s self-described failures as he went from an eager young college-aged writer to the novelist we know today. From 1996’s “Spellcast” to 2004’s “A Slow Burn Passion”, Buckell takes us through these “unsellable” tales, reflecting upon what mistakes he made and how he worked to correct them in future fictional endeavors. As a writer — although not one of Buckell’s level of recognition — I’ve seen myself making all of these mistakes. I’ve read other books about writing that describe the mistakes and tell writers how to avoid them. But where Nascence differs is that we actually see these “failed” stories in their entirety, and are able to look at Buckell’s analysis and his writing and see that, yes, Virginia, I have made these mistakes before.

I found Nascence to have more impact upon me than, say, Stephen King’s On Writing. While successful, Buckell is about my age (within a year) and is on the up-slope of his writing career — a place I’m trying to get to. Writers who find books about writing by well-established, older authors boring or unhelpful may identify better with Buckell and the tales he tells in Nascence.

The book ends with the version of “A Jar of Goodwill” that was published by Clarkesworld in 2010. While it is technically the strongest story in the volume, I have to admit that I actually preferred its 2000 incarnation. As I read that final piece, I kept mentally referring back to the older version that I’d just experienced. The 2010 version had bigger ideas, but the 2000 version was more visceral, and I connected better with the characters. Had I been an editor in 2000, I might have bought the original version. But then again, maybe that’s why I’m not an editor.

I would recommend Nascence to any writer aged 35 or younger. Older writers who are just starting out may feel resentful of certain events in Buckell’s career — specifically, the fact that he got into Clarion when he was young enough to simply take the summer off from college and do it, instead of having to take a leave of absence from a full-time job — but I think they too would still benefit from the lessons Buckell shares with readers. Still, in my opinion this is the book you want to give the young writer in your life, the one who keeps sending you stories that you just don’t have the heart to say “what’s the point?” or “this isn’t interesting” to. However, I don’t know that this book will really be grokked by casual (or even serious) fiction readers who aren’t also writers, and it may not be the best book for them.

Note to parents: This book contains scenes of sci-fi and military violence, as well as occasional sexual situations. Also, adult language. I would say it’s safe for teens of all ages, but with the caveat that less mature teenagers may not be able to deal with some of the subject matter. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

Book Review: “Seize the Fire” by Michael A. Martin

One of the things that I love about the Star Trek: Titan novels is that the editors at Pocket/Simon & Schuster allow the authors to really expand upon the scientific points in the stories. Even when the point of the story is to expound upon the Typhon Pact, science still gets done. In Seize the Fire, the second Typhon Pact novel, there’s enough science and technology to keep Titan fans happy, and as the story wears on, the action is enough to keep the editors feeling like the book is moving along at a good clip.

To recap, the Typhon Pact bands together six traditional Federation enemies (Romulans, Gorn, Breen, Tzenkethi, Kinshaya, and Tholians). Seize the Fire covers the Gorn, who we first (and only) met in the original series episode “Arena”. The Gorn suffered a defeat that day, leading to a thriving Federation colony on Cestus III (I believe the current President is from there). In other adventures, Riker was involved in an uprising to overthrow the Gorn government, so he has some backstory with them. But really, this book — like Zero Sum Game did for the Breen — establishes who the Gorn are, their caste system, their technology and terminology, and the way they behave around other races. The beginning of the book outlines that the Gorn warrior caste lost their one major hatchery, and now have to look for a new one. Fast-forward about a year, and a Gorn fleet has found an ancient alien artifact that could be used to terraform (ecosculpt, as they call it) a planet on the outskirts of explored space into an ideal hatchery world.

Except that the planet is already populated.

In comes Titan, who doesn’t want to see the indigenous race be destroyed by the terraforming device. The problem is that the people on the planet — Hranrar — haven’t demonstrated that they have warp-capable spaceships, so the Prime Directive is in play. It’s up to Riker and his crew to stop the Gorn from killing the Hranrarii before Typhon Pact reinforcements arrive… and before Gog’ressh, a renegade Gorn captain affected by radiation poisoning, destroys the ecosculptor in an attempt to remake the warrior caste in his own image.

One of the great strengths of the Titan novels has been characterization, and author Michael A. Martin — one of the co-writers of the first two Titan novels, which defined the crew and ship — includes updates on everyone we want to know about. Other than the main three characters (Riker, Troi, and Vale), he spends quite a bit of time on series regulars Evesh, Modan, Dakal, Torvig, and Dr. Ree. Unfortunately, being constrained by the story and the fact that he has to get from A to B to C kind of limits and two-dimensional-izes some of the main characters. To wit:

  • Commander Vale is annoyingly snarky. We get it, Christine — you’re a female Kirk.
  • Emo-Efrosian chief engineer Ra-Havreii continues to find things to whine about.
  • Other than a passing reference to her holopresence system, Melora Pazlar has very little to do in the way of character development. She’s Lieutenant Commander Exposition this time around.
  • Commander Keru is suspicious of everyone. At least he’s stopped moping around about Sean. That happened eleven years ago. I realize it sucked, but… man, eleven years!
  • We have some supernumaries on the bridge by name of Lavena and Rager. How is Rager still only a Lieutenant, anyway? She was an ensign on TNG, and one would think that the Dominion War would’ve kicked her up at least another grade by now.

The story is really about the Gorn — a couple of tech-caste characters are given main focus in the novel, along with Gog’ressh, and it is they who provide much of the impetus to move the plot forward. The main Star Trek characters are Riker (by virtue of being the captain) and Tuvok (who has some experience with terraforming devices — the term “Genesis” is bandied about quite a bit). Also added to the mix is SecondGen White-Blue, from the previous Titan stand-alone novel; he (it?) is an artificial intelligence who has made friends with Torvig. I think we’re supposed to get some sort of ironic vibe from that (Torvig is a cybernetic being; White-Blue is a machine intelligence who wants to learn more about organic life forms), but I didn’t. And finally, Mr. Gibruch, the second officer, appears to be a cross between Predator and a pipe organ — a cool image, but I didn’t feel invested enough in his character to really care about him.

While the climax of the story had plenty of action and a satisfying ending, I think overall the book had some flaws that should have been addressed. First and foremost, we don’t actually see Tuvok’s role in the climax — it just sort of happens, and then is vaguely discussed in the denouement. Secondly — and also related to Tuvok — there’s a flashback to show us why he hates Genesis-type devices so much, but it isn’t paid off satisfactorily (at least to my mind). And speaking of italicized sections, there’s a bit with the ecosculptor that feels like an artifact of an earlier story, perhaps something that the author edited out in revision and didn’t remove before the final cut. It makes sense, I guess, but again, no payoff.

Overall I found this to be a stronger novel than Zero-Sum Game, although I felt there were areas that could have been improved or expanded upon. Also, there was plenty of filler to cut, and while I know how hard that can be, sometimes your favorite scenes (like the whole bit with Noah Powell) just have to go. As with the Breen in the previous novel, we definitely got insight into the way the Gorn work, and I commend Martin for his excellent work there, but parts of the book were too two-dimensional or slow for me, and as I said previously, there wasn’t enough payoff*. Still, for having to somehow work the far-away spaceship into the main plot, this was done far better than many Voyager stories that somehow were shoehorned into what was happening on the homefront. And even if you don’t read Typhon Pact but you like Titan, you’ll like this book. A solid Star Trek outing all around.

* I think that, at the end, Martin was laying the groundwork for a Big Boss that Titan can take on in future novels, but I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t know more about what was coming. Contrast that to Treason by Peter David, where the new Big Boss for Calhoun and co. is clearly laid out by the end of the novel.

“God’s War” by Kameron Hurley

God’s War by Kameron Hurley opens with our hero, Nyxnissa, who has just sold her uterus for petty cash and then blown it all on drugs and gambling. Then things get worse. This book picks up the reader and drops them onto an alien planet, thousands of years in the future. It is a world where technology is powered by genetically engineered bugs and the colonists are tearing their world apart to fight a holy war, the origins of which no one quite remembers.

All the men of Nyxnissa’s nation are drafted into the army. Women are allowed to volunteer. Nyxnissa served her time on the front, and came home a hero, with a body covered in burns. Once the magicians — this book’s practitioners of the Sufficiently Advanced Technology — finished putting her back together, she joined the bel dames, an order of sacred assassins who hunt down deserters in the name of God and the Queen. She isn’t particularly successful at it. When she’s offered a job that promises to shake all the vultures off her back, she has to take it, no matter how low her odds of surviving it seem to be.

The other protagonist in God’s War is a young man name Rhys. What terrible thing drove him over the border to Nyx’s country, which is not a safe place either for foreigners or beautiful men, is revealed slowly over the course of the book. He is as close to a pacifist as anyone can be in war-torn Nasheen, and as close to a romantic interest as Nyxnissa is capable of having.

While it is unmistakably science fiction, this book’s form reminds me of some of my favorite urban fantasy. The focus stays on Nyx and her band of hired misfit. None of them can afford to worry about interstellar politics or the power struggle between the Queen and her bel dames. They’re too busy trying to and take care of the people they love. Some romance has been waved in the direction of this book, but thankfully it is not allowed to dominate the narrative.

This book is brutal. Everyone and everything in Nyx’s world has scars from the war. The author is unflinching in her descriptions of violence. I’ll admit to skimming some of the more graphic passages. I’d hesitate to call it gratuitous, though. Hurley understands that the life of a woman who collects blood debts is not one awesome shoot-em-up adventure after another. In the course of the book, Nyxnissa is broken down to the last slivers of her character. Her choices would not make sense without the violence that surrounds her.

God’s War runs for quite a while before it tells the reader what it plans to be about. I did not mind that, because I was too wrapped up in watching Nyxnissa as she struggled to survive from one day to the next, as she tried (and inevitably failed) to stay ahead of the people who hated her. By the time the book gets around to mentioning the starships, the aliens, and the effects that three thousand years on an alien planet have had on its human population, they were just another set of interesting details added to the plot that had already sucked me in.

Islam permeates every part of God’s War. I don’t recall another work of science fiction that featured a planet that was not only colonized by Muslims, but by waves of different Muslims of different ethnicities and traditions. The religions in God’s War seem rich and detailed to me. I would be very interested to hear the reactions this book gets from its Muslim readers.

Now I am trying to find time to reread this book. I was not completely sold on the way it ended the first time around. As time has passed, though, I find myself growing more and more attached to God’s War. I’m glad I had a chance to read it, and I recommend it highly. God’s War is a fine piece of writing, and not one that its readers will easily forget.

Kameron Hurley and God’s War were featured on John Scalzi’s The Big Idea series.

Book Review: “Soft Apocalypse” by Will McIntosh

Apocalypse fiction has been around for many years, usually in the form of a cataclysmic event — asteroid impact, nuclear bomb, giant space squid — that destroys a good chunk of the entire planet and leaves the survivors to fend for themselves in a world gone mad.

But after reading Will McIntosh’s new novel Soft Apocalypse, I can tell you that sitting in the belly of an intergalactic Sarlacc might actually be better than the road we’re on now.

Soft Apocalypse is the story of Jasper, a college graduate with a sociology degree, no job, and nowhere to live. While that does sound like the fate of many liberal arts majors these days*, where Soft Apocalypse differs is that it begins in 2023, ten years after an economic depression that has left 40 percent of Americans unemployed. The story begins in Metter, Georgia, about half a centimeter** east of the midpoint between Macon and Savannah, where Jasper and what he calls his tribe are harvesting wind energy from cars passing on I-16***. A policeman drives the tribe away, and after a short while they end up in Savannah, where Jasper grew up.

But this is not the Savannah you and I know, or the Savannah you saw in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. No, just like larger cities, Savannah is in the midst of its own troubles. Jasper gets a job at a convenience store and a house with his friends Colin and Jeannie, and he starts trying to eke out a life during this soft apocalypse.

As the novel progresses, Jasper does things that we might, in saner times, say that no human should be forced to do. He changes residences, lives as a nomad in east Georgia, falls in love with a woman who is extremely wrong for him — and everyone else — and is forced to watch a friend die in a scene that is both hideous and inventive.

To my mind, the main theme of the novel is “just how much of your civility are you willing to hold onto when no one else is civilized?” Most of us have said we’d be willing to kill to protect those we love, or if we were forced into a kill-or-be-killed situation, but for Jasper it’s harder than he expected. Still, he’s pretty lucky, compared to people who’ve succumbed to manufactured diseases, gangs, drugs, or even simple starvation. And he has friends, too — friends like Cortez, a fighting man and natural leader, and Ange, his off-again-on-again lover.

McIntosh projects the future of Soft Apocalypse in a thoroughly realistic fashion, and although world events occur relatively tangential to Jasper — they don’t really affect him as much as local ones like the Wal-Mart closing, but then, how many of us**** feel like the tragedies in Japan or New Zealand, or the regime change in Egypt and the unrest in Libya, really have an impact on our lives? Most Americans wouldn’t even know something was happening in Libya if it wasn’t making it more difficult to fill our gas tanks (or if their favorite Monday night shows hadn’t been pre-empted by the President on March 28). The future of Soft Apocalypse is much harder than anything we’re going through now*****, and McIntosh acknowledges that while also making some so-obvious-it’s-hard-to-see commentary on the present. (He has a great line about starving people, expensive cars, and oil.)

Overall I found Soft Apocalypse to be an engrossing read, as well as a fast one — I read 60 percent of it on a plane flight to Minnesota****** — and I attribute the latter to a combination of good pacing and the story’s ten-year timeline. Though it’s not a happy book, there are moments of win peppered throughout, and the ending is both satisfying and thought-provoking in exactly the same way the rest of the book is.

How far would you go to protect your tribe? Maybe after reading Soft Apocalypse, you’ll think a little harder before you answer that question.

Note to Parents: this novel contains explicit language and graphic violence, as well as sex, occasional torture, and mature themes. I don’t recommend it for anyone younger than 15, and only to highly mature teenagers between 15 and 18. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

Special thanks to Night Shade Books for providing a review copy.

* I know, I know, low blow. But I’ve worked in academia and employment and let’s just say the prospects aren’t good.

** According to Google Maps on my phone.

*** I’m not really sure how much they’d be getting. I’ve been on 16, and there were very few cars. My guess is that people were commuting from Macon to Savannah.

**** By “us” I mean the average American citizen, not the average sci-fi consumer, who is generally more in-tune with world events.

***** Interestingly, many of the difficult lessons Jasper and his tribe learn are covered in Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love, under the “things every man should be able to do” heading.

****** Don’t worry; I won’t make you do a word problem. It’s about three hours of air travel from Atlanta to Minneapolis, but since I read on my iPad I can only use it at safe cruising altitude, or on the ground. I read the 60 percent noted above in about two hours. For reference, you can figure out how fast I read when I say that I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 5.5 hours.

Book Review: “Dancing with Bears” by Michael Swanwick

The law-breaking but good-hearted character is one that most of us have come across in our consumption of media. From smuggler Han Solo to counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer, we’ve time and again rooted for men and women who break the rules in pursuit of a greater good — often reluctantly.

And then there’s Darger and Surplus, who have absolutely no desire to be a force for good. They’re in Russia to make money via a complicated con involving seven beautiful women and an ambassadorship. This is the general plot of Dancing With Bears, the new novel by Michael Swanwick.

The principle characters of Dancing With Bears are Aubrey Darger, a debonair Englishman, and “Surplus” — that is, Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux — who is a dog. Well, a dog genetically engineered to have the intelligence and bearing of a man, but a dog just the same. Together, Darger and Surplus use their not-inconsiderable intelligence to try and make a buck, or a ruble, or whatever the local currency might be. These gentlemen are dropped into a futuristic Russia, but not a future you might expect. At first, when reading the novel, I thought we were in an alternate past, but as Swanwick takes us through the story, it becomes clear that the technological utopia came and went. There’s still touches of technology here and there, but on the whole the Russia through which Darger and Surplus travel is quite non-technical. Think New Crobuzon with less machinery.

Our story begins with Darger and Surplus in the service of a Byzantine prince and ambassador to Moscow, who is conveying the Pearls of Byzantium — seven physically-flawless women genetically engineered for maximum pleasure, but who can only touch their intended husband — to that great city. Early on they rescue a man from a cybernetic wolf and have a small layover at his home, during which the man’s son, Arkady, is exiled for attempting to profess his love to one of the Pearls. Later, when the group arrives in Moscow, Surplus is forced to take on the mantle of ambassadorship while Darger begins searching for their true prize: the lost library of Ivan the Great. These two missions bring our heroes in contact with a huge cast of characters and a broad series of machinations to bring about a revolution in Moscow.

What sets Darger and Surplus apart, I think, is their complete disinterest in anything that doesn’t directly benefit them. I mean, Han Solo came back to save Luke; Mal Reynolds never committed a crime that harmed the common people; and John Glasken, despite being a lout and a womanizer, played a large part in improving Australica for all its citizens. But Darger has no desire to give the library to the Russian people, and Surplus certainly isn’t being an ambassador for his health (although if, as has been said in the news, having sex keeps you healthy, Surplus certainly will live a long life). No, the two of them are running a very large con* with the goal of getting rich.

Darger and Surplus, though, aren’t the only interesting characters in Dancing With Bears. We also meet:

  • The Three Stranniks, who have their own goals for Arkady and Muscovy.
  • Zoesophia, the leader of the Pearls, whose depths are… well… deeper than Surplus (or anyone else) expected.
  • Anya Pepsicolova, Darger’s guide to the undercity of Moscow.
  • Chortenko, an advisor to the Duke, whose eyes see everything and who has a thing for kennels.
  • The Duke of Muscovy, who spends a lot of time lying down on the job.
  • Kyril, a foul-mouthed boy who becomes a companion of Darger’s.

…as well as a collection of minor characters that includes genetically-engineered nine-foot-tall bears — presumably the ones with whom the dancing is done that the title alludes to.

Dancing With Bears introduces strong characters, a future world that will appeal even to the steampunk and urban-fantasy crowds, and enough plot twists to close a grocery store’s worth of bread inventory*. While I found the immense amount of intrigue a little too tangled for my liking, I was able to set that aside because the book was so rich in character- and world-building, two things which I personally really enjoy. The pacing is a bit slow at first, and there are a couple of “as you know, Bob” moments, but once the characters arrived in Moscow I found myself quite interested in what would happen next.

My only previous exposure to the author, Michael Swanwick, was in his novel The Iron Dragon’s Daughter. I definitely liked Dancing With Bears more than Daughter, perhaps because — at least, in my opinion — the ending was more satisfying and there were more characters to root for.

You’ll be rooting for Darger and Surplus as you read this book. Check it out.

Note to parents: This novel contains explicit material, including sex, violence, and language, as well as scenes of torture and drug use. I personally would not recommend this for anyone under the age of 15 — and even then, only to mature teens — although you should of course make your own judgment regarding your children.

* In addition to the novel itself, you may also be interested in a series of flash fiction running on the Starship Sofa podcast, “How to Run a Con”. In it, Michael Swanwick is joined by Gregory Frost to portray Darger and Surplus as they explain to the average listener the ins and outs of being con men. It begins in Episode 176.

** Did I stretch that metaphor so far? Sorry about that. But it sounded good in my head.

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