The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

If nothing else Becky Chambers' debut novel provides an inspiring story for the aspiring writer. Faced with the choice between keeping a roof over her head or finishing her book, she started a Kickstarter to fund her writing and was able to do both, going on to initially self-publish The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet in 2014 before it was picked up by Hodder in 2015. Since then, she's been able to work as a technical writer, meaning that the second book in the series is out in about two months. Triumph over adversity indeed.

Of course, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet has a lot more to it than an interesting and inspiring backstory. There's a lot to recommend it. It's a space opera which focuses strongly on the varied personalities aboard the Wayfarer and their interactions on a long-term deep space trip. The Wayfarer is a tunnel ship, effectively drilling wormholes for swift travel throughout the galaxy. Rosemary Harper joins the crew, running from her own past, just as the ship is given a year-long mission into what could be hostile territory.

It isn't a novel of the unknown. If you like novels charting something new, where the science and exploration aspects dominate the plot, this isn't the book you're looking for. Emphasis is squarely on the crew of the Wayfarer, their pasts, their presents, their hopes and their dreams. The bond between the crew is thoroughly examined.

I've seen articles strongly criticising The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet for being nauseatingly liberal. Different species and races rub along quite nicely in a confined space, with respect for each other and each other's beliefs in a way they wouldn't in real life, according to these criticisms. These are criticisms I reject. What is science fiction if it feels it cannot show us a glimpse of society where everyone does have that respect? For decades Star Trek held the progressive torch of science fiction, promoting a future utopia of co-operation and showing that respect could take relations - both personal and diplomatic - a long way. It was idealistic, it's true, but that's not to say it couldn't happen. And sometimes in the world we need to be reminded that different cultures can and do co-operate. There's enough war and discord in the world to want to escape from it.

This is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet's great triumph. It is escapist, whilst presenting a vision of the world that uplifts and affirms positivity. It succeeds in pulling the emotional heartstrings whilst also providing hope. In many ways, it emulates Star Trek at its best.

That said, I could still point out problems with it. I found the lack of focus in the plot to be slightly disconcerting. Although the driving narrative is there, it's broken up into episodic chapters which break the flow slightly. At times the characters are a little too positive and forget to be living, breathing beings. But these are complaints which can be overlooked.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is well worth reading and is a rare treat. In a field which in recent years has had a negative outlook, it is a positive delight.

The Fall of Hyperion

After my gushing praise of Hyperion back in January, it's perhaps a surprise to many (well, both of my readers) to hear that it's taken me until now to get round to reading its sequel. This surprise will be compounded by the fact The Fall of Hyperion has been sat on my bookcase waiting to be picked up since May. Surely I'd want to know the ending while the events of Hyperion were fresh in my mind?

Well, yes, but there has been plenty to read in the mean time. The Scar. Iron Council. Helliconia. A Dance With Dragons. You get the picture. Besides, I didn't want to get to the end of The Fall of Hyperion and find I didn't like it. I was so emotionally connected to certain characters that I didn't want an unsatisfying end to their tales.

Whether the conclusions of those individual threads of narrative were satisfying or not is for you to find out. Read The Fall of Hyperion. Read it now. Rush out of the house without setting the alarm and camp outside Waterstones if you have to. (Or just buy it on the Kindle, which is easier and probably much cheaper). Because The Fall of Hyperion is a worthy successor to Hyperion.

The first thing to note is that the narrative structure is much-changed. The Canterbury Tales style of the first volume of the Hyperion Cantos served its time and was released in favour of a more conventional, linear style. The background tale has been told and from now on it's only forward, with events quickly unfolding.

The events of the first volume - not counting the prologue - covered around six days. The events of this volume last around a fortnight, by my reckoning. It's a fraught three weeks. This instalment introduces a cybrid of poet John Keats, who serves as the main narrator. It's through him that we hear the events unfolding which surround the Shrike pilgrims and the other events which plunge the Web into chaos in the face of war with the Ousters.

This is the volume where the action is. For the 471 pages of Hyperion we got back story, set-up, exposition - call it what you will. For the 535 pages of The Fall of Hyperion we get that back story placed into context, twisted, linked, like sand being melted into glass, with all becoming clear. Anyone who has only read the first volume should read it again and try to predict the twists which follow - they're unexpected, but work superbly. The pace of events is relentless, and Simmons does well to not get bogged down at times.

Simmons writes with clarity and sharpness. He's very technically correct, but his characters lose nothing for it. I criticised Alastair Reynolds' debut novel Revelation Space once upon a time for having excellent prose but very little character, but Simmons doesn't fall into that trap (and I'll be the first to admit to really liking Reynolds' short fiction, which doesn't have the same problem). There's still a pathos to each individual character. And one of the best things about them is that they're all different. Whilst there are one or two caricatures to be found in the minor characters (a la Iain M. Banks), by and large each character is well-rounded and human. They have motivations for everything they do and there aren't any moments I can think of where a character does something that has me asking 'why'. Their reasoning may be flawed... but it is at least reasoning and not irrationality.

And the ending? Did I find it satisfying? There were a few problems with it, to be honest. After 970 pages, the final 35 or so struggled with having to finish off the whole shebang. The climax had been reached already, the major revelations unveiled and all that was left to be done was the tying off of loose ends. It felt typically post-climactic and was frustrating in that regard. But considering that standard of what went before it's not perhaps too much of a surprise. Simmons made a rod for his own back with his own standards of storytelling.

So, what do we have? We have a space opera of the highest standard, vying for a place alongside Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons in the SF hall of fame. Disappointing final few pages aside, it's as gripping a story as I've read all year. I'll be moving on to the second part of the Hyperion Cantos soon: roll on Endymion!

Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five is a funny book. In many ways it was not enjoyable. It was stark, bleak, depressing. The style in which it was written was no-nonsense, straight to the point. It was jumpy and inconsistent. And yet, despite all that, despite my own feelings of disgust at the blasé way things were depicted, I could feel its ideas influencing me.

Of course, all the above is deliberate on the part of the author. It's a semi-autobiographical work with features of science fiction, set around the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Those events, at least, happened. As did the capture of Kurt Vonnegut at the Battle of the Bulge, and many of the events described at the concentration camp. It's impossible to write a book around those events which doesn't inspire feelings of disgust. And it's meant to - it's meant to show the author's disgust with war.

Fundamentally, Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war novel. It runs deeper than that, however, analysing the illogical and irrational nature of the human race. It adopts the life of one Billy Pilgrim (supposedly a campmate of Vonnegut in his POW days) as a vessel through which to tell its story and get its point across. Through a temporal anomaly as a result of kidnap by aliens, his life unfolds in a non-linear fashion. One second he's in the concentration camp, the next he's on honeymoon with his wife, or an exhibit on an alien world.

The way the narrative jumps about is jarring. It's unconventional. And in the context of the themes the book tries to get across, it works. I'll admit to getting frustrated by the constant scene breaks (as a fan of a flowing narrative, without scene breaks apart from where strictly necessary), but otherwise the structure is well-suited to the story.

Some things in the book do stick with me. What was written on Montana Wildhack's locket, for instance (and its thematic significance), or the description of the bombed Dresden as being like the moon. But admiring a book is different from liking it. It was a gripping read, one which affected me, but I couldn't bring myself to like it in the slightest.

And for Kindle owners - I got my copy on the Kindle for £2.86. If you want to get it and read it at that price, it's more than worth it.

Helliconia

I want you to picture the scene: two figures prowl the ice-bound land, blizzards around them reducing their silhouettes to little more than dark outlines in the whiteout. One of them carries a spear, a crude instrument of flint and wood hardened by fire. They come to a bluff, look down, and see a sight beyond their wildest dreams.

This is the opening of the three-volume novel Helliconia. Written between 1978 and 1985 by Brian Aldiss, one of the contemporaries of Arthur C. Clarke, it tells the story of a 'Great Year' on Helliconia, a planet orbiting a binary star system. Each of these Great Years lasts 1,825 'Small Years', or around 2,500 Terran years. As the blurb of the SF Masterworks edition points out, cultures are born in the spring, flourish in the summer, and eventually die out in the winter.

Helliconia focuses on a mix of the people, the planet, the science, and the politics which make up the planet's history. We start at the end of a winter, with Yuli. From him we go on to the early societies, then to the advancement of technology and religion, to the eventual fall of human civilisation.

It's a remarkable achievement. Ambitious in its scope, it would have been easy for Aldiss to alienate a reader by introducing too much. I only read it in the summer and on holiday because I felt that at any other time taking on the challenge of reading it would render me incapable of understanding or following it. Perhaps some readers will be alienated - who knows? The fact is that he manages to pull off everything he tries, and in my book that makes this book something of a monument to ambition. Why write small when you can write big?

I won't pretend that at times it isn't slow, difficult going. Much of the time it is. That blend of ideas and theories mixing together means that sometimes the plot - insofar as events pertaining to human protagonists make up the plot - moves at a glacial pace. This is especially noticeable in the second part, Helliconia Summer. But ultimately the standard of writing never drops and it's a rewarding experience.

Central to the whole work is this idea of the cycle. The most notable cycle is that Phagors - humanity's traditional enemy on Helliconia - dominate throughout winter, but fall under the yoke of human control in the spring and summer. Plans are laid to eliminate the Phagors - and for by the Phagors to overthrow the humans - but none comes to fruition. There are the diseases - bone fever and fat death - which are vital to the ecology of the planet but against which humanity fights, again, fruitlessly.

Earth is watching Helliconia through its observation station, Avernus, and through its observations we see another side of humanity, where everything isn't caught in a cycle. We see destruction and rebirth. We see the whole spectrum of humanity through various lenses, through the sweeping observations of life on Earth or Avernus, and the close scrutiny of Helliconian life.

Helliconia isn't a book about wonderful adventure or the everyday human dramas of life, much as it does have those things in it. It's got a grand majesty to it, being about something larger and greater. Ultimately, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but it had me interested and engaged. Much as I was pleased to see it end (it's 1,300 pages long - anyone would be quite pleased to move on!), I'm not averse to reentering its world and exploring Helliconia a little more

The Scar

When I reviewed Perdido Street Station at the beginning of the year I was keen to get my hands on the sequels. It doesn't feel six months since I said it. It certainly didn't feel like I'd been out of Bas-Lag six months when I started reading The Scar.

It's a slow starter. China Miéville builds his world up again with great care and attention to detail. The journey away from New Crobuzon by one of the renegades connected with events in Perdido Street Station is initially to reintroduce the world and get a feel before the real action gets started. And that takes 200 pages. Not that it's a bad read at this stage. The conflicts Bellis Coldwine, the protagonist, feels draw you in to the character and introduce the mysteries of characters who will play a prominent part in future events.

And then we reach Armada.

Armada is a remarkable creation. I don't normally comment, simply because many steampunk locales have a vaguely similar feel even if they're portrayed differently. New Crobuzon itself is a remarkable achievement, being possessed of its own intrigues and a unique feel, but the floating city of Armada surpasses even that.

Armada is a city comprised of hundreds of vessels lashed together and built upon, turned into a floating city moving gradually around the open seas. Its people are pirates and pressganged, arranged into their districts. No one leaves; should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself kidnapped by the pirates who range on missions for Armada, then that's it. Your life will be spent in the city. Your loyalties will be dictated by your district. It's a city portrayed visually as something out of the ordinary, which Miéville's writing makes it easy to see in your mind's eye.

Then there's the people. There's a vast range of races, mostly humanoid, but some vastly different from the norm. Miéville makes up races for fun: there's the Cactacae, the Vodyanoi, the Khepri, Scabmettlers, Remade, Vampir... Each brings something new to the eclectic mix. And then there's the characters themselves. Mysterious, with hidden agendas aplenty. We only find out the truth of them late in proceedings.

Armada seems to lurch from place to place, guided by the schemes of its leaders. One thing leads seamlessly to the next. On the way through the 800-page novel there are dramatic uses of the sciento-magic thaumaturgy, quests, subterfuges, battles a plenty (both with and without hardy pirate cutlasses being involved). It's a book of great range, epic in its scope. At once it can be intensely personal and grandly epic in the same way as significant historical events. It has a life of its own.

So would I recommend The Scar? Heartily. It's something remarkable. It's not a book to read so much as you experience it. Miéville's writing means you can smell each and every moment as well as visualise it. It is immersive and once it's over you'll feel like you've lost a part of you. It's something to cherish.

Summer reading

It's the same, day in, day out. Wake up on a morning, browse the Job Centre website for jobs, apply for two or more, make lunch, and then have an afternoon to myself. It's starting to get boring already. Fortunately, there is a saving grace in this dull routine, and that's time to engage in my summer reading.

It seems to be a very British thing. The summer read is something that (perhaps thanks to Richard and Judy) has become a part of British holiday and summer society. People who don't touch books all year suddenly pick up the latest bestseller (generally something by Dan Brown or Jodi Picoult) to read either on the beach or in the park. Those who generally do read far more mark out certain books that they want to read. As I'm part of the latter group, I've bookmarked five books I want to read this summer.

5. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

There's always a classic on the to-read list, and this year it's probably the biggest of the lot. Last year, Crime and Punishment had me in the garden soaking up the rays while I read about deepest, darkest Russian winters with destitute students (that sounds familiar) and sordid murders. It was all right - not my cup of tea, but it was bearable enough. I also had a shot at Pride and Prejudice and hated it. But I'm now at an age where I may as well at least have a go at reading Tolstoy's epic, as much to say I have read it as much as anything. Plus, it was only about 70p on the Kindle.

4. Helliconia (Brian Aldiss)

It's another not-short book. This time, it's the omnibus edition of Aldiss' Helliconia trilogy. I've always enjoyed classic SF, and although this is from the 1980s rather than the 1950s, the name of the author alone (and the imprint it's from notwithstanding) is enough to qualify it for classic status. I've read books by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, etc, but never one from British SF's second most influential writer. Plus, I got it for my birthday and wanted to do it justice rather than rushing chapters at the end of the day.

3. Iron Council (China Miéville)

I really need to learn the shortcut for the flick over the 'e', as I seem to be writing Miéville's name every five minutes at the moment. Right now, I'm in the middle of The Scar, Iron Council's immediate predecessor. There's something about the Bas-Lag world that's addictive and which means Iron Council is one of my essential summer reads. Plus, it's always nice to see a player of Dungeons and Dragons who's made it big.

2. Starship Troopers (Robert A. Heinlein)

I've read Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, and it only feels right that I should read its spiritual rival. I've also read John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and it feels somewhat wrong that I've read different worlds of military SF without reading the paragon of the sub-genre. For years I've bemoaned the cost of what is ultimately a slim volume, but the Kindle edition is far cheaper, and it's about time I got round to it.

1. A Dance With Dragons (George R. R. Martin)

A few people will be annoyed at me. I've been ever so smug over recent weeks while the HBO series Game of Thrones aired on Sky Atlantic, knowing each twist coming well in advance. Reading the book before it came out on the telly was a good idea. I've also read the rest of the series, finally reading A Feast For Crows back in February. And since then I've been waiting to find out what happens next. In July, the next volume of the series comes out, and I'll be getting it for the Kindle (despite having it pre-ordered for when it comes out in paperback... next September). I'm rather looking forward to it.

The City And The Stars

I always struggle when writing titles containing lots of 'ands' and 'thes'. I'm never sure whether to capitalise them or not. In this case, I've gone for the 'yes' option. No doubt before too long I'll be opting in favour of 'no' for a while.

What I'm trying to say is that the title of Arthur C. Clarke's 1955 novel annoys me.

The book focuses on the city of Diaspar, a city apparently existing in perpetuity through the ages. Even by SF standards the setting is a long way in the future, taking place over a billion years in the future. Throughout the preceding billion years Diaspar has sat on 'the breast of the desert' (loved that phrasing) of an otherwise deserted Earth. It's apparently changeless, with even its population recycling itself. The city itself is run by a central computer, into which the city's founders have programmed a plan, the precise details of which are unknown by any of the human characters. In the previous billion years various stories have been passed down about the empire of humanity in the stars, and how the mysterious Invaders ended the empire.

As the population of Diaspar recycles itself, a new person is 'born' only once every deciaeon. This is someone with none of the pre-programmed fears and superstitions of perhaps twenty thousand years of life (each of the recycled people rediscovers all the memories of previous incarnations after 20 years). And the book follows one of these 'Uniques' on his journey beyond Diaspar.

If I had to liken The City And The Stars to another novel, it would have to be Asimov's Foundation. There's something analogous between them, right down to the whole galactic empire thing. Thematically they differ, but the two plots are comparable.

Of all of Clarke's works I've read to date, this is the best-written. The example above included, the use of language is somehow more lyrical than later works such as Rendezvous With Rama. However, it greatly differs from Rama, 2001: A Space Odyssey et al. TCATS is more character-driven, relying on characters to influence events. By contrast, those it's being compared to were written in reaction to the latter part of the Space Race and the later, post-Stalin Cold War. They also had far more emphasis on the hard science of the here and now (relatively speaking).

That being said, there are a few Clarke staples to be had. Unfortunately, I can't say what these are without spoiling the book.

There are weaknesses in the book. For one thing, it takes far too long to get going. Only once our protagonist, Alvin, get out of Diaspar does the pace start to pick up. Of the 256 pages, over 100 feel plodding. As a result, it's not easy to get into. Once it does get going the book flies by (I read the final 150 pages in a sitting), but readers will be put off by the slow start. The book also struggles with one or two loose ends, and would perhaps have benefited from losing one character completely.

However, I enjoyed The City And The Stars. It may not be Arthur C. Clarke's best-ever work (at least, not for my money), but it is a very enjoyable and thought-provoking novel.

Feersum Endjinn

I don't think I've ever said this before for a novel by Iain M. Banks, so here goes:

By heck, that was disappointing.

I went into it with very high hopes. Here was an award-winning novel, for one thing. Here was a novel by Iain M. Banks for another. And I rate Banks, I really do. The Player of Games, Use of Weapons and Look To Windward are all books I could sit down and read from now until Kingdom come. Against A Dark Background, Consider Phlebas, Inversions and The Algebraist aren't far behind. Of course he's produced material I've found disappointing, but that was of a standard compared to his other works.

This, on the other hand, was just plain disappointing by any standards.

It's a sure sign I'm not enjoying a book when it takes me 6 days to read only 279 pages. And this was one of those cases. I found the narrative structure frustrating, switching in a regimented fashion between initially unrelated viewpoints. Chapters split into sub-chapters on a rota basis might help the writer to keep a track of where he's going - but from my perspective I found it artificial and frustrating. The story just wasn't organic enough in its structure.

As usual, the world was well-realised with some excellent writing. Set in the very far future of Earth (a rarity in Banks' SF, Transition aside), the planet is in trouble. The Solar System is about to enter a dust cloud that will blot out the sun (or the Encroachment, as it is known in-universe). Humanity has lost its technological background, with quite a lot of its members having shoved off elsewhere and those still on earth being relatively backward. Even if many of those who remain are connected to another sub-world, the Crypt. It's typically Banksonian in its style with despots and conspiracies abound.

And yet I couldn't get into it. In no small part down to the final one of the four main viewpoint characters, Bascule the Teller. His sections are amongst the most frustrating I've ever read in the English language. For whatever reason Banks has used phonetic English with a Scottish dialect (natural, I suppose, considering his own background) to write from Bascule's perspective. And it makes for incredibly frustrating going. It really breaks the flow of the story when you're having to go back and spend a few moments deciphering what's just been said. Not that there was much flow anyway, arbitrarily cutting between characters.

When it all comes together at the end (as it inevitably does), what's gone before does make sense. But unlike Use of Weapons the sense isn't of, 'ahhhh, now I see, that's brilliant,' but is rather of, 'why didn't you just say that in the first place?' It pains me to not recommend a Banks novel, but this is one I can't recommend. But it's a blip, and isn't going to put me off reading Surface Detail when it comes out in paperback later this month.

The Windup Girl

The future's grim, if Paolo Bacigalupi is to be believed. Sea levels will rise. Cities will be razed by floods. Plagues - both natural and man-made - will rid the once-green land of a great proportion of the human population. Nature's diversity will be greatly curtailed, with both animals and plants becoming extinct in the cleansing of the planet.

It's for these reasons that I'm please to live in 21st century Yorkshire rather than 23rd century Thailand. It's a grim place. The world is recovering from the effects of global warming. Carbon-based fuels are gone, replaced by manual wind-up springs which contain energy. Food production is no longer a natural process; such has been the extent of the dying-back of nature that fruits and other forms of sustenance have to be artificially produced. These so-called 'calorie companies' are regarded as an evil - albeit a necessary one.

This is the world of The Windup Girl, a richly-textured, brilliantly realised place, chock full of scams and schemes and intrigues. Corruption and coercion go hand in hand. Very few men have honour. It's in this world that the titular windup girl lives. She's one of the New People, a Japanese invention with enhanced genes making her immune to illnesses and enhancing her abilities. She's also been bred to serve, initially a Japanese master, but then, after he discarded her, a second, less honourable man in a land where she's a million miles from welcome.

When she meets Anderson Lake - a calorie man working for one of the calorie companies - her influence on the turbulent Thailand of the 23rd century could hardly be predicted.

Much as I'm loath to bring something so unrelated as Shrek to the fore in a review of such a fantastic novel as The Windup Girl, I'm afraid I have to. Remember the part about ogres having layers, like onions? The Windup Girl reminds me of that, but for different reasons. There's the careful, subtle layering of a dangerous world and also the intrigues, the plots within plots. It's all intricate and beautifully done.

And it's not just the world and the intrigues that have multiple layers. The characters carry the story superbly. It's rare to see a world so brilliantly realised with equally brilliant characters populating that same environment, but it happens here. Emiko - the windup girl - in particular makes an interesting character. Doomed to subservience by her genes, her battle with herself and her innate submissiveness is fascinating, even if some of the scenes involving her are disturbing.

It's perhaps a mark of The Windup Girl's quality when I'm not finding fault with the writing or the plot or the characters, but that instead my biggest complaint is the disturbing scenes of sexual abuse. It always makes for uncomfortable reading, no matter the context and the surrounding quality. In this case, its inclusion was justified, but with one scene in particular near the end it felt unnerving.

Overall, however, I enjoyed The Windup Girl like I've enjoyed only a handful of other novels over the past year or so. Not since Hyperion have I dished out lavish praise, but in this case I feel justified in doing so. Read this book. It really is contemporary SF at its very finest. And I can't say more than that.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are tonight's entertainment!

It'll be nice to put my feet up this evening.

That is, it'll be nice to put my feet up even if it doesn't involve watching the football. Arsenal are playing L**ds for the right to play Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup, but, despite having a vested interest, I'm not watching. Partly because I can't be bothered, partly for other reasons.

So I'm spending a rare evening engrossed in ideas. I'll be reading a bit of Perdido Street Station, China Miéville's 2001 steampunk novel, a bit of my short story collection (not a collection of my short stories, I'll hasten to add - that was a clumsy turn of phrase), and for the rest of my time I'll be submersing myself in notes and mind maps, trying to coax a story into being.

I have a couple of ideas I could go back to, but I don't really feel like it. After writing most of those stories once, I really don't fancy writing them again right now. With the last few weeks being spent immersing myself in uninspiring coursework, getting a new idea to work on will hopefully ignite my imagination. From there, who knows: I might finally rewrite Descent (to which WriSoc will be 'treated' tomorrow), or carry on with Under The Railway Arches.

Who knows, I may even motivate myself to get the rewrites published so they won't just be meaningless words on a barely-read blog.

You may not be able to tell, but I'm excited.

Hyperion

After putting down Hyperion having finished it I was struck by how much it had managed to engross me. In its way, this is unsurprising; it took me five days to get through and after investing some ten hours in reading it I'd expect that for my money.

But what is surprising is how connected I felt with the central cast of characters.

Here we need some context. The galaxy is under threat. The human race is under attack from an outer enemy. Seven pilgrims go to the planet Hyperion, each with their own unique connection to the place. Their goal is the Time Tombs, a place where the tides of time itself are somehow reversed in a temporal anomaly. At the Time Tombs, they'll meet the Shrike, part god, part force of nature. One of the pilgrims will have their wish granted; the others will die.

Hyperion is the tale of that pilgrimage. Unlike other novels of its type, it doesn't go all-out to bring action and adventure to the reader. In fact, the space opera element is far from central to the story. Instead, characters dominate. Each of the central characters tells their story to the others, in the style of The Canterbury Tales, and it is through these novellas within the novel that the connection is forged between reader and character.

It's an effective technique. It's been a long time since I felt a real connection with a cast of characters, but with this group I felt a palpable bond forming after just the first couple of stories. Simmons expertly weaves each character's motivations into their being, and they really are real people in how they are portrayed.

Not every story is the same, and that's one thing that counts in favour of Simmons. Had he pursued telling six stories of a similar type he'd have quickly had a bored audience. Instead, there's a horror story, a war story, a love story, an intense personal drama and a detective story in the midst of the individual backstories. Not every one of these is outstanding, but by and large the standard is excellent.

My personal favourite was possibly the most character-oriented of the stories. Sol Weintraum's tale is a tale of a family tragedy, superbly handled by Simmons. It's not often I say this, but I really was sucked into the heartache of the family. But I was also struck by the multifaceted characters more here than at any other time. In the face of the tragedy there's the love between Sol and his wife, his unwavering dedication, his determination to see it through.

I wish I could read books more like Hyperion on a daily basis. It doesn't have to be epic space opera, or massive in scale in any way. Just get me involved, make me feel every character's emotions, and you'll have me truly drawn in. I'm looking forward to reading the second in the series.

The Last Question

As everyone who's ever read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy knows, the Answer is forty-two. It didn't occur to me until last night that this is, in fact, a parody of one very particular story.

Isaac Asimov needs no introduction to the SF reader. His novels and short stories are regarded as some of the best ever written in the genre. His intelligence comes through in each of these - and what an intelligence it was. Asimov was a professor of biochemistry in his lifetime, holding a PhD in the same. But his intelligence is never overbearing, and he wrote with a warmth and wit of a kind rarely seen in modern writings.

At the time of writing, I've read only two of his novels, and have just started on a third. But I have read some 30 of his short stories, the most recent of which blew my mind. SF fans will probably have guessed already that I'm talking about The Last Question.

In it, a question is asked of a supercomputer, not once, but several times over the course of trillions of years. Each time, the answer comes back that there is insufficient data to give a meaningful answer. The question asked is, ultimately, can mankind stop the end of the universe?

Being parodied by the aforementioned Guide should say it all about the esteem in which it is held. And I won't hesitate to add my voice to the mass of those already describing it as the best short story (in my experience) ever written. Asimov himself called it his favourite. But what makes it so exciting?

Maybe it's the suspense in which we're held throughout. What is the answer to the last question? Each time it builds up and we're let down, only to be built up again for the next time the question is asked. And when the answer arrives, it's so stunning that the reader has to sit back and admire the elegant brilliance.

Then there's the sense of helplessness. The universe will end up atrophying to a state of death, existing only as space, where stars are, at best, superheavy neutron stars with negative energy. Nothing will live. And there's always this sense that there's nothing we can do about it. It reminds us that, as powerful as we may become, there's something we can't fight and beat.

My bottom line to you is this: read The Last Question. You may find yourself surprised by it.

The City & The City

China Miéville wasn't a writer I was particularly aware of until recently. Then I got a recommendation, which declared him the greatest thing since sliced bread. The City & The City is the first book of his I've read, and if that's typical of his works then the recommendation is bang on the money.

Let me start by saying not much I've read this year has left me feeling wowed. It may be that this is the first novel to have me reeling in thought, absolutely stunned by the way it's left me in that state. The City & The City is subtle and intelligent, multi-faceted, encompassing more than the typical SF detective novel.

Set in a fictional city on the edge of Europe with Balkan overtones, the novel focuses on Inspector Borlú, of the Extreme Crimes Squad in Besźel, as he investigates a murder. As is typical in SF detective novels, there's more to this than 'ooh, look, a trollop who's gone and got stabbed by her lover's jealous missus oh dear'. What we get here is a curious concept of two cities encompassing the same topographical location. The politics of these two cities, Besźel and Ul Qoma, as well as the way the two cities coexist, make up the bulk of the novel's intelligent commentary on what we see and don't see in our own society, as well as the alienation in the same.

The concept is original enough, but its execution is superb. What I just told you does not do it justice. That I told you it says it all; Miéville weaves exposition of the world into the plot with such subtlety that no single passage at any stage can be said to be explaining the world. The concept permeates your mind rather than being forced upon it by heavy-handed infodumps. I can imagine that each reader will see their own version of the city and the city, rather than everyone being straightjacketed into one distinct vision. This makes the underlying alienation all the more stark.

At the heart of the story is a relentless pace that grips the reader and leaves them breathless. It has all the ingredients of the whodunnit in the Morse sense (although Morse tended not to have investigations into more than just the case); the culprit's eventual identity doesn't come as a surprise so much, as the point of the novel isn't the murder itself but the surrounding circumstances, but it still holds the attention. For a casual reader of mysteries, uninterested in the philosophies underlying the plot, the case would hold water. But it really is those surrounding circumstances that make the book what it is: brilliantly intelligent, and almost insidiously subtle.

Will I be reading more of China Miéville's work? Undoubtedly, yes. This is a novel that had me captivated in its themes and world more than any other since Look To Windward. I'm hard pushed to find a genuine weakness in Miéville's work, and I can't imagine it'll be too long before I pick up a copy of one of his other works.

Peter uses motivator: it's not very effective...

I've been struggling with writing for a week or so now. Ever since I finished the article about cricket, I don't think I've written a single word, and I'm not sure why. It's not as if I've not had a bit of time on my hands, outside of having a dissertation to write, but for whatever reason I've not been feeling anything like creative.

It's hardly professional of me, I know. If I'm to be professional about the whole thing I should at least sit down and work on one of the half-a-dozen stories I have on the go, even if I'm not feeling particularly motivated. But I haven't been, and those stories have been neglected as a result.

Is it a loss of confidence? Hardly. I'm still in the figjam mindset, and I know it. Perhaps it's just that I've needed a break from writing short stories for a week while I continue to digest more and more of them. Of late, I've been reading them at an increased rate as well as listening to them through the podcasts. I'm subscribed to Daily Science Fiction. It's not unknown for me to download PDFs of magazines these days. My level of exposure to short form SF is as high as it's ever been.

And having half-a-dozen stories on the go at once hasn't exactly helped matters. I probably need to focus on just one at a time before going off and writing another one. Jumping from one idea to another isn't good for an organised mind.

This is a promise to myself: I'm going to use this next few weeks to get the stories I've been working on finished. When I'm not disserting my topic, I'll be found constructing SF and horror short stories, starting with finishing the one for the 2013 anthology. This promise starts tomorrow: at least an hour of work while in uni, waiting to meet the third years.

Or maybe not

Right, so the first draft is finished. 486 words of me spouting the usual nonsense. But it's nonsense I like. And it's nonsense I want to try to get published. With apologies to all who might actually have been in the slightest bit interested in reading it (apart from people who I live with, obviously, who might as well have a free pass to my work once I start getting vaguely enthusiastic about it), I'm going to send it off.

The editing process is starting tomorrow morning (or later this evening, once The Inbetweeners has been on telly - I have no doubt that there's a blog about them coming on at some point fairly soon). By this time tomorrow evening, it'll have gone off to the first of the three ezines I have earmarked as potentially publishing it.

Once again, apologies. I'll get to work on a different one instead, just to satisfy the masses (both of them).

Summer Reading

According to Blogger, it's been just over a year since I started writing this blog. Since then, I've made a grand total of four entries, which probably sums up my work ethic (or lack thereof). Some would say it's because I have nothing to say, but they probably don't know me very well: I always have something to say on an issue, whether it's proposed changes to the review system in Test cricket, or the latest ridiculous cost-cutting proposal from our 'esteemed' government.

It may surprise some people that I'm not actually going to be talking sport or politics. Well, the sport bit is more surprising than the politics (especially as, at the time of writing, Town are top of the league, still in all the cups and look quite decent - even if we have only played once). Instead, it's a summer reading blog. Huzzah! Isn't that exciting?

Most of the things I've read this year have actually been pretty disappointing. Even the Iain M. Banks stuff I've read hasn't been particularly cracking by his insanely high standards. Against A Dark Background was good, but a little close to Use Of Weapons to set my pulse racing, and The Algebraist was also good, but a little simplistic by Banks' standards, or at least it felt that way. Hopefully, Transition will be as good as Look To Windward.

In fact, the best novel I've read this year was Stephen King's maiden published novel, Carrie. What it had was a sense of excitement. It wasn't perhaps technically the best, and was overblown to the point of melodrama, but it had energy and it managed to get under my skin more in its 200-odd pages than many longer books have all year. The sympathy I felt for Carrie White was also a result of this energy and the connection I got to the book in a short space of time. There were things I didn't like about it, but they didn't stop it being very entertaining.

The most intriguing thing I've read thus far this year has to be Watchmen, possibly the most successful graphic novel of all time. It also happens to be only the second graphic novel I've delved into in my lifetime (the first being The Gunslinger Born), and so at the time of reading it (February) I couldn't have told you what made it intriguing and compelling. After a dozen or so GNs, I understand a little more, but I'm still not certain what made it so. A re-read is in the offing at some point in the very near future, probably once I've finished re-reading The Dark Tower.

Speaking of The Dark Tower, the re-read is currently being held up by my little sister's inability to finish a book of more than 200 pages in under 2 years. Before re-reading Wolves of the Calla, I've told myself I have to read 'Salem's Lot (not to mention that it's part of my reading list as an example of a popular contemporary horror novel), a book that the Midget hasn't finished yet despite the fact she started reading it about 18 months ago. She's about 100 pages from the end, and isn't likely to pick it up again at any point soon (I doubt she'll even bother to take it to uni with her, so that might be my chance to nick in and read it - it'll take me 5 days at most, so she's not exactly going to miss it), which is irritating when I want to get on with Roland's quest for the Tower.

Currently on my bedside cabinet is the second volume of A Storm of Swords, the third (or fourth, if you're counting individual volumes) instalment in A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy. It's a refreshing change from Tolkien-derived fantasy. It is largely set in a medieval European setting, and yes, it does have dragons, but it's concerned with politics and plotting and backstabbing and the interesting stuff that actually went on in medieval times, and not with going off on a quest for an all-powerful McGuffin. I've enjoyed the tale thoroughly, but at 1,200 pages this particular instalment is a little on the long side, and I could do with a break from long epics. Still, only 150 pages to go, which should get read today, so then I can crack on with something else. There's a short SF collection I picked up on holiday which looks a likely candidate...