reviews

Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Review based on a copy received from NetGalley and Tachyon Publications

Alastair Reynold’s Slow Bullets is a novella exploring issues of identity, memory and revenge. There are echoes of Iain Bank’s The Use of Weapons as well as some of the ideas explored in the Poseidon’s Children trilogy. The tone and setting of Slow Bullets is quite different to that of the gothic space opera (Revelation Space) or generation spanning science fiction (Poseidon’s Children).

The majority of the action is set on the prison transport Caprice as it recovers from a calamitous malfunction. The novella’s protagonist Scur and her fellow passengers awaken from hibernation to find the ship in orbit around a frozen planet and suffering from an acute case of bit rot.

Caprice’s passengers include war criminals from the two opposing religious factions. The war was over and a cease fire declared as the ship set off on it’s ill fated mission. As the ship’s systems fall apart, Scur and her fellow passengers have to deal with religious tensions, long simmering vendettas, as well as figuring out how to preserve millennia’s worth of cultural and scientific knowledge.

I quite enjoyed Slow Bullets. However, it feels more like a short story that was extended to a novella than a novel’s worth of ideas condensed to the shorter format.

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Poseidon’s Wake by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poseidon’s Wake is the third volume in the Poseidon’s Children series by Alastair Reynolds. The events of this book are set a few centuries in the future from the second book – On The Steel Breeze. The main protagonists are still part of the Akinya clan. We find Mpozi, Goma and Ndege on Crucible and Kanu in the Solar System.

The book explores the results of the arrival of the Watchkeepers and the aftermath of the Mandala event at the conclusion of “Steel Breeze”.

Let me be honest – I found the book hard going, yet worthy of the four stars I have given it. There are long passages meditating on the meaning of life and the role of belief. Stay well clear if you are looking for action scenes or military science fiction. This is very much in the vein of Existence by David Brin. We have a McGuffin – vast alien artefacts on the planet Poseidon. The plot revolves around separate expeditions from the Solar System and from Crucible to the hitherto unvisited system following the receipt of a mysterious transmission.

Along the way, we find the machine civilisation explored in the first two books, we find super intelligent elephants as well as inscrutable aliens. Reading this reminded me of Rendezvous with Rama – it has the similar mix of hard science fiction as well the plot point of humans trying to figure out the motivations of an unknowable alien. It is a fitting conclusion to the series and a book that has stayed with me more than I expected it to.

SIDENOTE – There is one thing I never figured out about these books. Where are the White people? We have a future where all the conversation happens in Swahili, or Mandarin or Portugese – but no English. We have characters that are of different ethnicities, but no WASPS. Whats up with that?

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Daemon by Daniel Suarez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

TLDR – Daemon starts off as a promising techno-thriller with a somewhat plausible premise but ends up being a run of the mill action roller coaster with killer robots. It’s a fun, if unsatisfying genre piece.

Daniel Suarez knows his domain – contemporary / near future technology and it’s implications. What I am also quite sure about that he has a rather pessimistic view of where things are going. Daemon starts as a crime procedural with a small town cop trying to solve two seemingly unconnected deaths that appear accidental. We quickly find out that there is a rather sinister force behind these deaths. We encounter disenchanted, anarchist-libertarian hackers, mysterious computer programmers who are not quite who they seem, and lots of sinister government types who simply know whats best for everyone.

The key character is the eponymous Daemon – a networked, non sentient computer system that is a dead computer genius’s gift to humanity. The Daemon has very specific plans (though they are never revealed – we will have to wait for the sequel) for humanity and it goes about recruiting brilliant, motivated followers through a variety of somewhat plausible means. We have entertaining descriptions of computer games and call centre software amongst other things. I really enjoyed this, the first half of the book. A particular standout was the police / FBI raid on the dead computer genius’s computerised mansion which I found most satisfyingly and gratuitously violent and explosively entertaining.

The book jumps forward a few months around the half way mark. This is where things get problematic. There are large passages that involve discussions between nameless “important” people in the FBI, CIA, NSA and other alphabet agencies as they wring their hands and try and figure out just exactly what is going on. Yes, we know government bureaucrats are clueless, thank you. The episodic, multi-character structure of the book also becomes a problem here. There are a number of characters who fade in and out. There is a particular character, a FBI special operations type fellow, who must be based on someone the author dislikes. He appears in two long passages, and appears to take a huge amount of punishment: being blown up, burnt, shot at, attacked by killer robots, being thrown off a car, etc. But it is difficult to really care too much because we don’t know anything at all about this particular, long suffering sap. The book builds up to an explosive climax involving a long car chase and,yes, more killer robots.

I enjoyed reading Daemon – just like I enjoy big budget sci-fi / action movies or playing first person shooters. There are some neat touches, cool technology, lots of explosions, and killer robots. But, in keeping with genre tropes, we also get gratuitous violence, paper thin characters, and an inconsistent plot. A strong recommendation for those who like computer games and are anarcho-techno-libertarians. An entertaining and somewhat lightweight read for the rest of us.

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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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