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The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My rating : 3.5/5

“The Shadow of the Torturer” is a difficult book to read and to review. The New Sun series of books by Gene Wolfe are often described as the best fantasy ever written. I approached “The Shadow..” expecting to be blown away, but ended up a little baffled and quite intrigued.

The book is narrated by Severian, the titular Torturer. The book is structured as Severian’s memoir written some unspecified time in the future. Severian informs us at the start of his memoirs that he has an eidetic memory. His tale is structured as a series of vividly remembered vignettes that loosely follow Severian’s journey from his time as an apprentice Torturer in the Citadel to his banishment the beginnings of his travels.

You would expect somebody with total recall to be the most objective narrator possible. Yet, following Severian’s story often leaves us perplexed. To put it briefly, things happen to Severian. He behaves like a toy that is wound up and left to rattle across the city of Nessus. He meets characters, gets into and out of difficult situations in strange places, yet emerges unscathed without much comment or reflection. This is not because of poor writing, but at this early stage in the series seems like a clear plot device. I suppose this is the beauty of the book. You know something is up, but it is not clear exactly what and why.

The descriptions of a (post apocalyptic?) Earth are very well done. The city of Nessus, where all the action takes place, is intriguing. It is somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, and its people live in a monarchial, class based, almost medieval society with some hints of far future technology. Think medieval swordsmen riding genetically modified uber-horses. The story is set in the far future, and the author often throws in passages that convey a sense of decay and melancholy. There are no “information dumps”, and the history of this society is not something that we know about. The “Urth” is as it is, and forms an intriguing background to Severian’s journey.

Since this is the first in a series of books, I will not comment much on the characters. We meet many, but we don’t get to know any of them, since they are all described to us by Severian. He may have total recall, but as the story progresses, he is quite possibly a lousy judge of character. You may find this endearing or irritating. At this stage, I am willing to give the author some leeway.

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Existence by David Brin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(2 and a half stars out of five)

Existence is the first book by David Brin that I have read. It is a curious blend of a novel of first contact, a tour through a near future earth, conspiracy theory and an almost seven hundred page primer on the Fermi Paradox. I came to the book with an open mind in light of the mixed reviews on Goodreads and other places. There were times while reading Existence where I felt very close to giving up. I slogged through, but it was a close run thing.

This is an idea driven as opposed to character or plot driven work of fiction. We are introduced to a number of characters, but as the book progresses, it becomes very difficult to keep track, or indeed to care much about most of the characters. In the very first chapter, we are introduced to a space “garbage collector” astronaut and his pet / helper cappuchin monkey. The astronaut character, Gerald Livingstone, stays with us till the very end, but he never really progresses much from being a simple plot device in the beginning of the book to ending up being an obvious mouth piece for the author by the end. Characters come and go, some pop up again towards the end of the book for no particular reason. Some turn up and dump huge amounts of information, and then go away. Some do so in extremely aggravating manners (including a “rastafarian” space scientist who has “aromatic smoke” coming out of his dreadlocks – really?).

So, if you are looking for plot driven science fiction, stay well away. If you are looking for characters that you can relate to, or who have a sense of humour, or who you may care about just a smidgen – this book is not for you. If, however, you love hard science fiction and have spent any time at all trying to figure out “Are we really alone out here?”, you are in for a treat.

The book starts with our space garbage collecting astronaut hero and his pet monkey picking out an alient artifact from Earth orbit. The first half of the book deals with the fallout. The book alternates between plot driven, character POV chapters, and, for want of a better description, information dumps – wrapped as excerpts from real and future fiction. Some of these chapters do feature our aromatic smoke spewing “rastafarian” as a talking head. With the author we get to explore various theories on the Fermi paradox (why has no-one said “hello” yet?), as well as the traps and pitfalls that may face an civilisation like ours as it reaches for the stars. Some of these segments are enlightening, some are entertaining and a few are rather dull.

Existence also gives us tentalising glimpes of near future with climate change, societal strife, and interesting political issues. To the book’s detriment, most end up being undeveloped plot dead ends. We also get to meet a number of aliens, but most are disappointingly human, yet quite devoid of humour. There is an entire subplot involving super-intelligent Dolphins which also peters out. We have re-incarnated Neanderthals, AI “citizens”, smart-mobs, and a number of other plot points that come and go without really moving the plot forward or adding anything to the overall narrative of the book.

Mr. Brin is clearly a man of ideas, his book positively overflows with them! I just wish he had sacrificed a few of these ideas and focused more on a coherent plot. This is an engaging read for those who enjoy hard science fiction and books on first contact.

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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 Stars

Snow Crash is the book that made Neal Stephenson a sci-fi superstar. I have read and enjoyed most of Neal Stephenson’s work and was looking forward to reading what is widely acknowledged as a Science Fiction classic.

You are transplanted to the not so far future, riding shotgun beside Hiro Protagonist – master hacker, concert promoter, freelance spy, and the greatest sword fighter in the world; currently employed as a pizza delivery driver. He is joined in the first chapter by Ms. YT (Yours Truly) – the precocious 15 year old skateboarder, escape artist and all around badass. We also find Raven, a giant Aleutian, with a vendetta against the United States, and a tactical nuclear device in the sidecar of his Harley Davidson. When a man has “Poor Impulse Control” tattooed across his forehead, you know that his appearance is not going to be good news.

In Snow Crash, the government has shrunk and the US is split into a number of corporation controlled “burbclaves”. Policing, infrastructure, intelligence gathering, and even religion have been outsourced to competing corporations. The world is lit by the ambient glow of advertising billboards, some of them advertising the Mafia’s guaranteed thirty minute pizza delivery. Yes, the Mafia is in the pizza delivery business (and is Hiro’s employer), and is run just like a corporation, with three ring binders filled with detailed descriptions on how each franchise should be run.

The dystopian near future USA is still a magnet for refugees from the third world. We find a huge flotilla called the Raft moving across the Pacific ocean and ready to disgorge hundreds of thousands of refugees onto the West coast. Against this backdrop, we find dead hackers and a mysterious virus that can jump from computer to human. After losing a friend, Hiro tries to get to the bottom of the mystery and with YT’s help, uncovers a nefarious plot by a powerful billionaire to take control of society. Hiro and YT encounter hackers speaking in tongues, Vietnam veterans with cybernetic enhancements, and adorable cyborg dogs.

Mr. Stephenson, however, also spends an inordinate amount of time talking about Sumerian and Hebrew myths, and trying to convince us that all of this has happened before. We get chapters which read like excerpts from an Encyclopedia or quoted verbatim from an academic paper. We know that Mr. Stephenson can write snappy, kinetic prose. So it is jarring to move from high speed skateboard chase sequences and fantastic sword fights to ten pages of description of the Sumerian political system and language. It is interesting, but feels out of place given the otherwise dynamic nature of the book.

Despite its flaws Snow Crash is a wonderful work of speculative fiction, and fully deserves its “Classic” status. It is engaging and thought provoking. The central premise of the book is that ideas are viruses and can be communicated. This is a clear allusion to advertising and how ubiquitous it is and the power it exerts. In a world that is dominated by corporations and capitalism, the corporation that has the most number of clients (voluntary or otherwise) is the most powerful. This is powerful stuff.

Like the best satire, it is a scathing critique of where our society was headed. I recommend it whole heartedly to any science fiction fan. It has all the meaty science, action and friendly cybernetic canines you could wish for.

April 2013.

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Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars
Great North Road is a rather long, but very enjoyable book. The book is set in the twenty second century. There are two main plot strands. The first is a murder investigation set in the English (or GE – Grand European) city of Newcastle, and the second plot strand takes place on an alien planet, one of many human colonies linked by the worm holes (very similar to those described in the Peter Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga).

Like many other reviewers, I found the murder investigation set in Newcastle to be slow going. There are passages where the author explores how a crime could be committed in a future with ubiquitous surveillance that I found very enjoyable.

The second plot strand that is set on the planet of St. Libra would be comfortable territory most fans of “big picture” science fiction. We find fascinating landscapes, alien biology and riveting suspense. The world of St. Libra makes for an excellent setting for some great action scenes.

Fans of Peter Hamilton”s previous work will find much that is familiar and enjoyable in Great North Road. At about a thousand pages (or two weeks of reading on my trusty kindle), there were parts of the book that I skimmed. The book starts off quite slow and the plot only starts to move along in the final third of the book. Impatient readers proceed with caution!

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A.I. Apocalypse by William Hertling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A.I. Apocalypse is Mr. Hertling’s second book and a direct sequel to “Avogadro Corp”.

The plot starts when a Leon, a gifted teenager, inadvertently unleashes a virus that spawns an entire civilisation of A.I.s. We are re-acquainted with Mike Williams and the (now rather cute, loveable and just a little creepy) ELOPe from “Avogadro Corp”.

I quite enjoyed the first half of the book where the author describes how the A.I.s evolve, how their civilisation was organised and the fallout of all this happening. The second half describes the interaction between the human and A.I. civilisations with ELOPe acting as an intermediary.

The story has some interesting ideas – the military using massively multiplayer games to recruit soldiers, the idea of trade replacing competition as the central organising principle of the A.I. civlisation, and the use of evolutionary algorithms.

As in Avogadro Corp, the writing in A.I. Apocalypse is uneven. Instead of conversing, the characters seem to be quoting from wikipedia. I also found it hard to empathise with most of the main characters.

I am interested in A.I., neural networks and machine learning, so this did not bother me, but avoid this book if you are looking for sparkling dialogue. Mr. Hertling does throw in some bits which made me laugh out loud. In one scene, an A.I. states “All your bases belong to us”. I guess Mr. Hertling knows his target audience.

I would give the book 3.5 stars.

Related review: Avogadro Corp By William Hertling.

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The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hannu Rajaniemi’s Quantum Thief is delightful yet difficult science fiction. It is Mr. Rajaniemi’s debut novel and it is set in a world that is quite unlike most of what we find in contemporary science fiction.

The plot centers around Jean Le Flambeur, the titular “Quantum Thief”. The plot begins with Le Flambeur being broken out of a (delightfully conceived) prison by a mysterious warrior and embarking on a quest that centers around Le Flambeur’s past. The action moves on to a fascinating moving city on Mars and the civilization of the Oubliette where most of the plot unfolds.

I enjoyed the book but found some of the writing a little difficult. The author enjoys using neologisms to describe key parts of the world of The Quantum Thief. I found it a struggle to follow what was going on.

The book could have done with a bit more exploration of the background and history of the world. The book touches on themes of freedom, memory and what it means to be alive – but these seem incidental to the somewhat pedestrian plot. Having said that, The Quantum Thief already has a sequel out and I look forward to revisiting the world of Le Flambeur.

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Avogadro Corp by William Hertling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read William Hertling’s Avogadro Corp in a single sitting. It is a short, enjoyable but flawed book. It has much to offer for those who are interested in AI, the Singularity and in technology in general.

The book is set in Portland in the present day and describes the incidental creation of an Artificial Intelligence and it’s subsequent fallout. Avogadro Corp in this book is clearly based on Google. A team lead by the two main protagonists David and Mike create an email analysis tool to help users craft emails to maximise the probability of success of their intended communication.

The concept in itself is interesting and plausible. In the first quarter of the book the author describes fairly accurately how a large software company like Avogadro Corp may function. David and Mike lead the development team of the tool, called ELOPe. The description of office politics and the tussle over resource allocation is amusing and fairly accurate. Mr. Hertling works for a large software corporation and his experience shines through here.

The plot moves along at a good pace, but there are some problems with the premise. The AI in question deals with email, yet it somehow manages to influence world politics, launch anti aircraft missiles and buy and equip oil tankers within a matter of weeks. I find it difficult to believe that a large company like Avogadro corp would be managed in such a way that people just shrug and carry on when millions of dollars worth of purchases are made, or big contracts are signed. Email is all pervasive and powerful, but this was a leap too far. These things could make sense if the timeline of the book was set over a couple of years. However the main events in the book happen over a period of two months or so making it difficult to suspend disbelief. All of the above issues are forgivable since they do advance the plot and did not detract me from enjoying the book.

As the plot progresses, more characters are added, and things become a little problematic. The character of Gene who helps David and Mike trying to deal with the fallout of their software going “live” is a poor composition of the most hackneyed character types: the grizzled and grumpy old man muttering about “kids these days”, the hardboiled detective who heroically pulls together diverse plot strands with a legal pad and a highlighter, and of course he keeps a bottle of bourbon in his bottom drawer. Gene appears whenever the plot needs a little push. I found a lot sections featuring him quite irritating and I ended up skimming them wanting to get back to the matter at hand.

The things that bothered me the most were small and incidental plot details. Near the start of the book, David decides to change the code of the ELOPe overnight and releases it to production. Mike, then spends a couple of days trying to figure out why the ELOPe behaves differently. In most software houses, every change would be committed to a source control system before being released out into the wild. This system is often the first port of call when trying to figure out what went wrong and what was changed. Mike, who is supposed to be the technical lead, does not do this and spends a couple of days agonising over log files that do not show him anything. There are similar small details that are jarring when reading the book.

None of the characters have a distinct voice except the walking stereotype that is Gene. David, one of the main characters, is also problematic. He is supposed to be a brilliant programmer and project manager working for the world’s biggest web services company yet he does not know what social engineering is. There is a passage where David, Mike and David’s wife Christine are talking and Christine suddenly goes into a lecture on social engineering. There are many similar passages where the author goes from “show mode” to “tell mode”. Characters walk on, say something that moves the plot forward, and then disappear – only to pop up later.

I realize I may come across as overly critical of Avogadro Corp. Yet, I enjoyed it enough to finish it in one sitting. The story starts well and it pushed all the right buttons for me. It could have been much better if the author addressed some of the issues around character development, pacing and thought through some of the plot details. This is Mr. Hertling’s first book and at a price of under $3 on the Amazon Kindle store, a lot of the issues I mention above can be forgiven. I will read the next books in the series with interest.

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