The Chrysalids

One thing that may be said of the best SF is that it has the quality of transcending the time in which it was written. It remains relevant in a way contemporary mainstream literature can't, because by its very definition it has to be stuck in its time (whereas SF isn't). A good example of a piece of SF that remains relevant is Dune, which has the same thematic relevance now as it did on its publication in 1965.

Another novel from half a century ago that retains its relevance despite its age is The Chrysalids, written by the author of The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham. First published in 1955, it's a story about intolerance that should be read by anyone who goes out into the world and deals with people on a day-by-day basis.

David Strorm is the son of the local community's chief preacher in a post-nuclear apocalypse world, where mutations are commonplace and religious zealotry rules over reason. Anything that differs from the norm is regarded as an offence against God, and has to be destroyed - including people. David and several of his contemporaries have a psychic link that they keep secret, fearing discovery as mutants. David's father is the biggest zealot of the community, urging his flock to stay pure and blaming any mutation on the weakness of others who slip into sin.

It may be because I haven't read The Day of the Triffids or The Midwich Cuckoos for quite a while, but Wyndham's writing feels different. There's far less 1950s sensationalism, and it's far more fluent than what I've come across from him before. On a sentence level alone it's a good read, without having the detailed exploration of intolerance and the actions of the intolerant. Throw in a compelling story and you've got a top-notch read, possibly finer than what are widely regarded as Wyndham's greatest works.

So how does The Chrysalids relate to the modern world? Even today, intolerance is rife, because we don't understand the differences between peoples. In Wyndham's devastated future, we see physical differences marking people out as being less than pure, and therefore inhuman. Such people are, at the very least, ostracised and sent into exile in the Fringes, lands affected more badly by the unspecified disaster that led to the breakdown of civilisation in the first place. In cases where it's felt the difference poses a risk to the way of life, people are hunted down and disposed of. There are so many analogies that could be drawn. Were it written today, Wyndham could have been writing about religious intolerances in places like Saudi Arabia. He could be talking about racial tensions in the Deep South in the 1930s. But as it is the broad analogy may be applied to any number of situations. In truth, it does make it required reading for living in the modern world, where tolerance is still sadly lacking.

One final word: the cover of the edition you're most likely to pick up at the moment is an interesting exercise in spotting the artist's error.

The Lost World

Seemingly at every turn I'm confronted by dinosaurs. The BBC in particular seems keen to shove its Planet Dinosaur series in my face at every opportunity (despite the fact it's a cheap and less good version of Walking With Dinosaurs). So it's perhaps natural that, when stuck for something to read, I turned to the classic SF collection on my Kindle for entertainment.

Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for Sherlock Holmes. The Lost World is hardly unknown, however, and comes almost as highly-recommended as Baker Street's finest detective. It was first published in 1912, being serialised in one of the major publications of the day prior to being published in book form. The story is fairly well known: irascible Professor Challenger claims to have found a place in the Amazon where prehistoric life still exists, and forms an expedition to the isolated plateau, where dangers of varying varieties await the intrepid explorers.

The story is told through the diary/correspondence of one Edward Malone, a journalist who tagged along with the expedition. It bears many of the staples of SF of that era: the writing is bombastic and a little pompous, with the narrator given to exclamations which no modern writer would make. But it's not a bad thing when used well, as it is here, and it helps to place the book in its time. To compare the styles of different eras is a fool's analysis. However, I can't help but mention that the narrator tells us far too many of the characteristics of his fellow explorers, rather than showing them, as is the modern style. There's plenty of the good old 'said-bookism' on display, which always annoys me. Let the dialogue speak for itself! But still, it was the style of the time so a certain amount of overlooking has to go on.

The story is set in its time as well. Ninety-nine years after its publication we know that dinosaurs died out 65.5 million years ago. We know that there's no undiscovered plateau in South America where they could live. These days we'd see genetically engineered monsters in a theme park with some sort of technobabble explanation behind them. In 1912, however, it didn't take too much to suspend the incredulity of the reader and make them believe in this plateau, because it wasn't totally beyond the bounds of possibility that it could exist; there were vast tracts of land unexplored, away from which modern satellites and air travel have taken the mystery.

But anyway, back to the story. Ten years ago I'd have loved The Lost World, and it feels like I missed an opportunity to have a favourite book back then. Dinosaurs attacking, wars between primitive peoples and other such tales of high adventure would have piqued my immature interest. The story is suitably exciting for the 'boys own' audience, and for younger readers there's plenty to get stuck into. But as a slightly older reader, who has read plenty of better SF from a similar time period, it doesn't quite get me all excited as I would once have been. Which is a real pity.

The Ghost Brigades

Why did it take me so long to get round to reading The Ghost Brigades? Old Man's War was as good a military SF novel as I've ever read (even including The Forever War, but that stands apart on different grounds), with engaging characters, an interesting story and a well-realised universe.

On this evidence, John Scalzi could write the handbook on writing accessible, engaging, compelling SF in the twenty-first century. The Ghost Brigades continues on where Old Man's War left off, both in terms of the story and stylistically. Scalzi doesn't overcomplicate his language, and some would criticise him for perhaps not stretching his abilities as he should... but why would he do that when he writes crisp, clear English with just the right amount of quirk as it is? True, he's not going to win awards for use of poetic language, but it works just fine as it is, thank you very much. The result is that a casual reader would do well to pick up Scalzi's work as a gateway to modern SF.

Old Man's War introduced humanity's colonies, the CDF, and the ghost brigades themselves. I'm not going to go into too much depth about them - read the book to find out more (and you'll enjoy it, believe me). And now the world is nicely fleshed out we can progress deeper into its depths. Relatively speaking, Old Man's War was a simple tale of a man going to war; The Ghost Brigades goes several steps further, with a far more complex story, which also offers the humanity we've come to expect from Scalzi.

We have a traitor who has left his consciousness behind. In an attempt to get to the bottom of his treachery, Special Forces try to transfer the consciousness into a Special Forces soldier. It doesn't take, and so Jared Dirac (that's his name) ends up in the ghost brigades, fighting to defend humanity's interests in space.

What Scalzi does particularly well is create characters who at one level have to be identical, but on another, completely different, level need to be individuals, suited to different roles in the narrative. There is one character who comes into the book already well established in-universe, and Scalzi keeps her character consistent with what went before, but he creates another half-dozen or so well-drawn characters. Even those he doesn't go into depth with are left with distinct personality traits which mark them out as different.

It's possible to connect with those characters because they are well-written and distinct individuals. Moments that shock the characters are felt by the reader (well, by this reader, at least), and every triumph and defeat is met by an emotional response.

At its heart, The Ghost Brigades is a good old-fashioned adventure story set in space. In many ways it's what the Star Wars prequel trilogy should have been if it was literature and not a set of undercooked films with too many special effects. And I don't think I can pay it a higher compliment than that.

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.

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.

Alien invasions?

My mind is on edge at the moment. It seems to be flitting from thought to thought with little consistency. One moment I'll be thinking about Battlestar Galactica, the next hamsters. It's just been the way things have gone. There is an advantage in this: I've been getting quite a few creative ideas.

The way my mind's flitted from place to place lately, browsing TV Tropes isn't the brightest idea. Within seconds of clicking on a trope about dialogue I could be perusing a very different trope on the nature of the apocalypse. However, with being an SF writer I tend to keep my trope browsing to the SF realm. And today I came across a beauty, which got me thinking.

My thought was this: Why would an alien race want to invade the Earth?

The Martians in The War of the Worlds had a good reason to pick the Earth as their target. They were living on a dying planet and needed to move. Earth happened to be the nearest convenient Goldilocks zone planet, so they invaded.

Less clear-cut was the Slitheen in the first series of the new Doctor Who. Their reason for invading was to reduce the Earth to molten slag so they could sell it off to the highest bidder as fuel. Only, they could have done this to any number of uninhabited small rocky planets anywhere in the galaxy. Mercury, Venus and Mars are all candidates in our own solar system. We also have dwarf planets such as Pluto (though the destruction of it following its demotion would be overkill, and possibly set the entire astrology community to a path leading to perpetual civil war), Ceres, Makemake and Eris which would fulfil criteria. None of the aforementioned planets have life, you'll notice, and neither do any of the dozens of moons in the Solar System. Why didn't the Slitheen just go to one of those? Yes, we might end up narked that some alien race nicked a planet, but (other than altering the entire gravitational balance of the Solar System) what real harm would that do?

Resources provide no excuse for an alien invasion. Water is available in colossal quantities throughout the universe (it just needs thawing out), as are uranium, iron, hydrogen, oxygen and any number of vital materials. Even lebensraum isn't a great exuse, as if an alien race is capable of building an interstellar fleet then, by and large, it should be capable of constructing habitats on uninhabited planets such as Mars and Venus.

It's fair to say I've never been a great alien invasion fan, especially when I'm expected to take them seriously. Only occasionally is an invasion really justified for the purposes of the plot (a mental religious attitude might justify it) and even then I doubt it'd be something I enjoy.

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.

Shakespeare: fantasy icon

I don't wish to alarm anyone, but I've been thinking. There's a lot of debate around at the moment about literary fiction against genre fiction. So we have the literary critics on one hand cherry picking genre works they like and effectively declassifying them from SF, horror, detective or fantasy story status because they want to. And then we have the proud genre defenders who denounce anything vaguely literary as pretentious.

Time to throw a spanner in the works of both arguments.

I'm not going to say that all SF is good literature. Neither am I going to say that some 'literary' work isn't pretentious. Some SF and other genre work is nothing short of escapist pulp (the production of which gives the biggest genre critics ammunition to shoot down and condemn the entirety of genre fiction as being meaningless rubbish. And it's also safe to say that some literary work is pretentious - especially when it deliberately tries to be obtuse.

It's also more than possible for literary and genre fiction to overlap. And this is true to a surprising degree. I'm not talking about the usual suspects that literary buffoons have 'declassified' from genre status and made acceptable, like 1984 and Brave New World. I'm talking about surprising things. Like the work of William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was a great fantasy writer. I can see the literary critics having massive heart-attacks at my statement already (should any ever lower themselves to the level of a mere human being after so many years of being the demi-gods of fine taste in art). But it's true. At the end of the day, he was a fantasy writer, at least to a small degree. I say that considering the context of the times in which he lived. A lot of the things he wrote about we know to be impossible (hey, King Macbeth, there's your old mate's ghost over there, you know, the one you killed...), but they were genuinely held superstitions back then. But then you look at A Midsummer Night's Dream and you realise that he wrote at least an element of fantasy.

It's about fairies, for heaven's sake! You're not telling me that Puck and Oberon, to name just two, aren't creatures of fantasy.

So there we have an argument for both sides just laying down arms and making peace in the issue. The greatest writer of all time wrote what would today be regarded as genre fiction. And frakking good genre fiction at that (argue that point all you want, but we're still discussing Hamlet senior's ghost over 400 years after the play was written - I'd say that alone makes it good genre fiction). At the same time as writing that genre fiction, he was writing literary work that would influence the English language's development like no other single man has ever managed.

I doubt that anyone else will actually spot this (one side's too busy deliberately ignoring any genre elements to their darlings and the other's too busy ignoring the existence of half of the darlings of their enemy). But on the off-chance that someone does, just think about what a pointless debate the whole thing ultimately is when there's such a massive overlap between the two.

Writing progress!

I feel slightly guilty. Today's been a slow day on the dissertation, with just over 400 words written, and yet here I am skiving off doing work to write about something completely unrelated. Perhaps it's a sign that the times they are a-changing, that I'm working like a lunatic. I was out last night for the first time in goodness knows how long, and yet rather than relaxing and enjoying a couple of acoustic sets in a chilled atmosphere, I was left thinking about referees and their duty of care in relation to a particular hypothetical situation.

Of course, I shouldn't feel guilty. I am allowed a break. I'm halfway through the dissertation now, and I'm through the toughest bit, pulling all the little minutiae of the law together to form a coherent picture. Next comes the fun bit of criticising it and then writing my conclusions. Besides, if I'm working all the time then I'll burn myself out at exactly the wrong time of year.

On this basis, I finally managed to get some writing done the other night. Admittedly, this was at one in the morning, but it was good to get all creative. Even if it was just the planning stage. It was even nicer that the plan I did manage to knock up for myself is of a good-sized project that should keep me busy a while with doing bits and bobs of research, then writing it (I reckon it'll be 20,000 words or so), then editing it. And the even better bit is that I have another project to work on in tandem.

Neither of these stories is small. The first one requires research and careful world-building. The second needs a steady hand. It'll be a case of subtly attacking current government social policy within the context of a fictional near-future setting, which makes it an awkward balance; while I want to get the story across (and it's a good story), I don't want the messages to be missed, and by the same token I don't want the criticism of the government to be overbearing.

But for now, it's back to the dissertation. Frustrating as it is, it has to be done. In order to make it a little more bearable, I have described it in videogaming terms to myself. And I'll do the same here. It's like I've been through the little minor bosses, and now here's the end of game boss. Can't fail at this stage.

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.

Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance

I've been watching BSG for the better part of 5 years now, and it's never failed to amaze me quite how good it is at so many things. Intense personal drama, big themes, a sense of intimate character and major action set-pieces are all things it's proven to be good at on the TV.

Also impressive was the TV movie Razor (I've yet to see The Plan, despite having it on blu-ray. I'm waiting until I've finished watching the full series through again). So BSG can do long-form and medium-form (short form, for the purposes of Hugo nominations). And, apparently, it can do very short-form as well.

The Resistance (originally titled Crossroads) is a series of 10 webisodes based around the formation of the resistance against the Cylon occupation of New Caprica, forming a bridge between seasons 2 and 3 of the main show. I've seen the main series without having watched the webisodes, and can honestly say that having not seen it doesn't detract from the story one bit. However, it is still worth watching.

It's more than a little jarring to watch the blu-ray release and find that the picture quality is still only that of a streamed video off the internet, especially after the full HD of the series itself. But the production values are high for what is a fairly obscure bit of Galactica canon and the acting is at its usual high standard, with Michael Hogan in particular putting in a strong performance as Colonel Tigh.

The Resistance goes some distance to explaining why Jammer was to be found lining up in the Cylon police ranks at the start of season 3. He is the central character of the webisodes, alongside another of BSG's lesser lights, Duck, the Viper pilot. As usual, the story is very focused on the human reactions of characters to their situation. Jammer experiences moral revulsion at guns and other armaments being hidden in a temple; Duck reacts badly to the death of his partner, Nora.

The webisodes throw some fresh light on the opening to season 3 in particular (up to and including the episode Collaborators) and are an interesting diversion fans should seek to get hold of and watch. Despite being short (the total series running time is less than 30 minutes), it's a worthy watch.

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.