by Lavie Tidhar
Categories
Central Station
Tag: science fiction
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Redshirts
by John Scalzi
Everyone who has ever watched more than a couple of episodes of the classic Star Trek will have noticed that when you’re beaming down to a new planet, you don’t want to be one of the team in red shirts. Those are the ones who end up shot, eaten, crushed, or otherwise killed by whatever this episode’s planet has in store.
Upon this premise does Scalzi found this charming book. The “red shirts” are real people, too, and in this alternate world, some of them begin to realise their fate.
“Yes, death by away team. Very effective on this ship,” Jenkins said.
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to this ship. It’s a prestige posting, but slowly he begins to see that – other than the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and one or two other charismatic key personnel, everyone else is at risk. As he shares this with a few close colleagues, they realise, too, that there’s no simple way out of this for them:
“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug,” Cassaway said, dryly.
Andrew and his compadres therefore expend a great deal of energy in not being the one’s selected for the away missions. Until the friends stumble upon a secret, which gives them – just maybe – a truly improbable way out of this all…
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Limited Wish
by Mark Lawrence
Excellent follow-up to One Word Kill. You should definitely read that first, although if you’ve forgotten a couple of points from it, Mark Lawrence is good enough to put a very brief summary at the start.
This book picks up the action and carries it forwards with great conviction and style. The characters continue to evolve, and they are just as charming, annoying, or threatening as in the first book. As before, one of the main “characters” is the cancer of the main protagonist:
‘The cancer?’ She came right out with it. Most people hesitate when they say the C-word, just a little, as if they still need to convince themselves you don’t get it just by saying it out loud. Like it was one of those demon lords in D&D that are summoned by name. Say Demogorgon too many times and he was pretty much bound to show up, but cancer . . . not so much.
The science is also very thorough, although since we are talking about time travel, it’s not entirely possible to produce all the convincing details! But it’s well done, and includes several interesting points, such as moving things in time – even just by microseconds – causes them to apparently move in space relative to the Earth, as the planet has moved at least some distance through it’s orbit in that time.
I won’t give away any plot – you’ll have to read it! Now I’m looking forward to #3 in the series…
View all my reviews
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Wild Cards
by George R.R. Martin and others
This is the first book in the “Wild Cards” franchise, which I’d not come across before, despite it now containing (according to the Wikipedia article) 27 books across four different publishers. It’s a set of short stories by various excellently-credentialled science fiction authors, all set in the Wild Cards alternate history, and edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass.
The set-up to this alternate history is simple: just after World War II, an alien spaceship crashes in the US, and the – very human-like – alien inside demands to meet the President, to mobilise the entire American military to search for another crashed spaceship, which this first alien claims to have been chasing. For inside this other ship is a deadly bioweapon, which if released will have potentially terrible consequences for humans.
And, of course, it does get released: the first of the short stories deals with these events themselves. The bioweapon turns out to be a gas which reacts with human DNA: only 10% of people are affected, and most of them are killed outright. A few, however, have their DNA mutated and acquire either crippling, or superhuman, abilities. Those deformed by the virus become known as Jokers, while those given superhuman abilities are known as Aces.
I was pleasantly surprised by the high overall standard of these stories. Too often I’ve read compilations that were a bit of a curate’s egg – good in parts. These were overall pretty consistently good, with several really hitting home at a very strong level.
The stories are set across the decades from the end of the war to the early 1970s, and contemporary history plays a big role. Initially the Aces are genuine superheros, and we meet a team of four who work at arms-length for the US government to help them with various foreign policy “interventions” in Argentina, China, Cambodia and elsewhere. But all is not always sunny: a couple of the stories dealt with the McCarthy era, where the House Un-American Activities Committee turns its spiteful gaze upon the Aces, and decides they’re not “American” enough, and have possible communist leanings (hey, they worked in China didn’t they?). It’s quite gritty, real-world stuff, and the short story “Witness”, by Walter Jon Williams, was one of my favourite.
I also liked “Transfigurations”, by Victor Milán, which is set in “summer of love”, and wraps around things like the Kent State Shootings, aka the May 4 Massacre, in 1970. These were nicely written stories that did a great job of taking real-life events and using them as a point of leverage for their plot, whilst not diminishing the tremendous impact of the historical events themselves.
Some stories just use the Aces/Joker storyline to come up with interesting characters. “The Sleeper”, by Roger Zelazny, and “Shell Games”, by George R.R. Martin are representative of this, and both showcase great authors doing something a bit different from their normal fare, and doing it very well.
I’ll definitely be looking out for more of these collections in the future. Some of the Aces/Jokers are I’m sure going to make further appearances – the final story, “Comes a Hunter”, by John J Miller, is surely just a teaser for a future visit by The Predator, while the alien visitor himself – Dr Tachyon – is here for the long haul, I’m sure.
The book was first published in 1986, but despite this, it’s aged extremely well. Overall, I’m giving this four stars – very enjoyable.
(Possible trigger warning: some strong sexual content in a couple of the stories. Yes, people had sex even back in the 1980s 🙂 )
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The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
by Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland
Another fun romp into a different version of the present day from Neal Stephenson. This one is about exploring different kinds of “present day”, as well as different possible histories! Our hero is Melisande (Mel) Stokes, a linguist of languages both ancient and modern, who is recruited by Tristan Loyd to translate a number of ancient documents. But first she has to sign the NDA, promising not to tell anyone about any of this, ever. Since she hates her current boss and her job as an overworked, underpaid, untenured lecturer at Harvard, she accepts the offer, and finds she has joined the mysteriously named DODO.
In due course, she finds that DODO are trying to build a machine in which people can once again perform magic – even though magic seems to have disappeared from the world in 1851. Magic, we in due course discover, is done by people who can access other “threads” of the present moment – alternative versions of the world that have split off but are still intertwined with ours. It’s all based on the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which holds that such world-splittings happen literally at every moment. People who can do magic – witches – can manipulate these threads in some way.
So Mel’s job evolves into recruiting a witch, keeping the witch on-side with the programme (witches turn out to be incredibly high maintenance), and working with the expanding crew in DODO to achieve their ultimate aim – using magic to “tweak” the past to the geo-political benefit of the current United States.
The characters are well drawn, perhaps with a little too heavy a hand in one or two places but not bad. And the plot is spun with the characteristic humour and wit of Neal Stephenson. I loved in particular the clashing of the two cultures – one represented by Mel and Tristan and their start-up style organisation, the other the full-press acronym-loaded bureaucracy and hierarchy of the US government, who we soon find out are funding the whole DODO thing. Delightful!
Four stars for me.
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Distress
by Greg Egan
Andrew Worth, a journalist burnt out by his last expose on the abuses of biotech, persuades his boss to let him take over an assignment from another editor about a physics conference on the Theory of Everything. This conference is to take place on a human-created tropical island in the Pacific, which Andrew imagines will be just the tonic he needs. What could possibly go wrong? Other than nearly dying from a synthesized cholera virus, death threats to the Noble Prize winning Violet Mosala (whom Andrew is following through the conference), being held at gunpoint and kidnapped, the paradise itself being attacked, and the potential ending of the entire universe as we know it?
So it’s a busy old time for Andrew, and the plot moves along at pace, with great twists and turns. However, this isn’t just a great techno-thriller: it’s a brilliant exploration of the edges of modern physics, combined with some philosophical probings of what it is to be a separate self, set in a near future where the cults of scientific ignorance that we see today have gained dangerous power, and aren’t embarrassed to use the technologies that science has given them to further their aims. In its time, this was I suppose on the edge of cyberpunk, but there are also shades of Michael Crichton in the detailed use of science and technology as central to the plot, but not overwhelming it.
One of the things that amazed me about this book was just how good these technological predictions are. It’s set in 2055, but it was written in 1995, and it reads astonishingly well today. It could easily have been written in the last couple of years. The technology – gene splicing, virtual reality, machine/brain interfaces, instant worldwide data access – is all spot on for today, as are the concerns around climate change, online cults, and sexual identity. As a trivial example, there are seven identified sexes, with gender-neutral pronouns universally used. Pretty much the only flat note from a tech point of view is the use of infrared as a short-distance communications channel for device-to-device communications.
A solid five stars from me – I’ll be digging out more of Egan’s back catalogue asap!
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Synners
by Pat Cadigan
This is another early cyberpunk work – I seem to be having a couple of months where classics like this are appearing in my to-read queue! Pat Cadigan writes beautifully, and she brings more to the individual characters than many of the other early cyberpunk authors. See this insight into the mind of one of the lead characters:
She had the guilts over the coffee even as she couldn’t wait to drink half of it at one gulp. Modern life was making her sick by trying not to make her sick.
The underlying theme is our interactions with our technology – how much do we change for it, as opposed to changing it to work better for us. Gabe, the protagonist, is a “synner” – a synthesizer, who can take images from the brains of artists and spin them into a media package suitable for mass consumption. Here he is, spinning off down this thread when he’s standing in front of a vending machine, and someone says he looked like he might need a few coins for it:
‘Ah. I thought you looked like you needed, um, change for the machines.’ Gabe shrugged self-consciously; he could feel the entire common room watching. The man’s smile was unexpectedly broad and sunny. ‘That’s a good way to put it. How did you know?’ Gabe had the sensation of going over a mental speed bump. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘My whole life has been, “Okay, change for the machines.” Every time they bring in a new machine, more change.’
In this future, a new technology – called sockets – is emerging, which allows people to plug themselves directly into the “dataline” – what we might call the Web. Synners who can do this become vastly more capable, and more commercially valuable. But is it dangerous? – what if there are monsters out there?
Neurons start firing in patterns over and over, and if they’re bad patterns, well, that’s too bad. You people got no shields. You put in sockets, but you forgot about the watchdogs and the alarm systems and the antivirals and the vaccines.
Reality isn’t out there, it turns out, it’s in our heads. The line for Gabe and his friends becomes increasingly blurred, and the action increasingly frenetic. Great stuff, from one of the founders of cyberpunk.
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True Names
by Vernor Vinge
A classic story from the early days of Cyberpunk, when the internet was a thing known only to a few academics and scientists, from 1987 and the dawn of the World Wide Web.
We meet hackers – Mr Slippery is the main protagonist – and we meet them as they fight their way across the global networks, or the Other Plane as it’s known. The fight each other, they fight cyber criminals, and they fight the government. But Mr Slippery finds himself arrested – or threatened with arrest – unless he helps the government (the NSA?) fight back against the Mailman, an international dark hacker, or Warlock, who is recruiting other Warlocks to his side.
The title comes from the believe that you need to keep your true name secret, for it will give others power over you. Mr Slippery’s true name becomes known to the government, giving them a hold over him. Now he must find the Mailman’s name, and protect his own.
The book is one of the defining works of “cyberpunk”, perhaps with less “punk” than William Gibson, but a full dose of “cyber”. It hasn’t lost its power, either way.
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Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
Not many authors can start off in the “mystery world” genre, tour through hard science fiction, and end up being about what it is to be a conscious being, all while keeping your attention. It’s a tribute to Neal Stephenson that he can steer this path with Anathem, and make it thoroughly entertaining with it.
We start off in a world occupied by “fraas” and “surs”, who we soon work out are the friars and nuns of some kind of secluded community. Once every few years – 10, 100, and 1000 years, it turns out – the gates of these communities are opened, and for ten days the inhabitants can go out and mix with the “extramuros”, that is, those who live in the secular society outside the walls. Turns out this has been going on for nearly four thousand years. Only this time, events start to happen which turn that regular, ordered, world almost literally inside out… We get to follow along, narrated by one of the fraas, through all sorts of adventures – which I won’t mention because, spoilers. And once I’d made it through the first 100 pages or so, and was beginning to get to grips with the odd vocabulary and all the new words, this was a great adventure, excellently told.
One thing I will say is that this isn’t a book about monks and nuns, so don’t let that first 100 pages put you off. It’s a book about many things, but perhaps most of all it’s about the human consciousness – what it might mean to have one, why and how we might have one in the first place, and what the outer limits of having one might be. It’s set on a world very similar to Earth in many ways, and contains all sorts of entertaining indirect references to science curiosities we might know on Earth – from Roger Penrose’s non-periodic tiles to Kurt Godel’s theory of time travel. All done with Mr Stephenson’s usual flair and wit.
In the end, this was almost a totally brilliant book for me, and just missed it by not quite exploring some of those possibilities far enough. So four stars, not five, but definitely worth a read.
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The Delirium Brief
Laundry Files #8
by Charles Stross
I’m delighted to report back from the world of Bob Howard and Mo O’Brien that all is not well – indeed, all is going very very badly, verging on world-endingly bad, and it’s pretty much a race to the finish as to which particular variety of soul-sucking creature from a parallel universe is going to do us all in.
In other words, this, the eighth in the Laundry Files sequence from Charles Stross, is another cracking read. Although they’re all set in the same world and are more or less sequential, they are all sufficiently independent that I suspect you could pick this one up cold, and still get a great deal of enjoyment from it. I would still recommend reading the others, though, because (a) they’re very good, and (b) you’ll get a little bit more out of this one, as (for example) you’ll known Bob’s history with PHANGs – the in-series designation for what might otherwise be known as vampires.
The world of the Laundry files is the world of modern 21st century England, with a twist: there is a branch of the civil service responsible for dealing with the occult. Up to about book 6 of the series, this was a very secret organisation. Underfunded, drowning in bureaucracy, and with endless reports to fill in, but still very secret.
However, in the preceding book, The Nightmare Stacks there was a full-scale invasion of Yorkshire by undisguisably occult creatures, with some very serious consequences. So now the dreary world of bad coffee, broken IT, and crippling paperwork which Bob used to inhabit has been brought into the harsh light of day, and is being picked over by the mass media in an entirely believable way (an early chapter deals with Bob’s quizzing by Jeremy Paxman on national TV…). At the same time, the organisation is under external threat from not just the usual occult beings, but the more immediate danger of self-serving politicians, all seeking to cover their arses in the aftermath of what happened in Yorkshire. And then a private jet lands at an airport in England, bringing an entirely new kind of threat…
It’s a great book, with a twisty plot, plenty of wry asides, and some new characters, as well as the return of many old ones. I loved it!