Blackout/All Clear

A quick glance at my bookcase(s) should tell you that I'm no stranger to either the doorstopper or the epic series. So when I start a review talking about a book's length, you need to bear in mind that I got A Dance With Dragons in hardback on release day, read The Stand in under a fortnight, am in the process of re-reading Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series, and in general don't mind a good long read.

Connie Willis's Blackout/All Clear is certainly a long read. It's one of few novels I've read that's had to be split into two heft volumes, such is its length - 1,400 pages of time travelling, the Blitz, and agonising over whether the course of history has been changed.

For such is its premise. A group of historians are sent to England in 1940 on separate assignments from the time travelling labs at the University of Oxford in 2060. Once there, they find they can't get back home. The greatest worry of the protagonists - Polly, Eileen, and Mike, to use their 1940s cover names - is that they might do something that cost the Allies the War through their actions in the Blitz.

If that sounds like it isn't enough to fill a 1,400 page novel, you'd probably be right. There's a large incidental cast of characters, and the plot isn't quite as simple as it sounds from above (more of that later), but my main complaint does come down to the fact that there's about 400 pages of filler over the two volumes. Willis would no doubt argue that her world-building (which is excellent) and character development (which is less so) justifies the length, and she'd have a fair argument. What could be argued on the other hand is that she'd done so much research that she felt obliged to include it, hence the dragging middle section.

For that criticism, however, it does have to be said that the research is put to good effect. Although much of it fails to advance the action, it lends an authentic feel to events. Constant references to real bombings slipped in to speech remind the reader that the Blitz is a real and present danger in 1940, and the day-to-day lives of Londoners in the Blitz are faithfully represented in the shelters and the department stores where the protagonists sleep and work. However, it's as if Willis felt every aspect of her research had to be represented, hence long sections where little happens but characters point out things that were bombed in the middle of repetitive conversations about how they'll return to Oxford, or make side-journeys that serve only to bog down the pace.

But when the action does advance, it can be exhilarating. There's a section surrounding 29th December 1940, the night the fire watch saved St Paul's Cathedral, which is tense and fraught and genuinely exciting. Multiple plot threads come together and are expertly handled in a brilliant sequence which takes place while bombs hit London and characters are forced away from their introspection and into decisive action.

And, of course, there's the plotting. Connie Willis needs congratulating on her handling of a dozen intricate plot-threads. Some twists can be seen coming from a mile off, it has to be admitted, but when everything comes together it can be seen how well the novel works as a unit. Time travel as a plot device does give a writer licence to obfuscate and then reveal, and if done badly it can be painful to read, but Willis does it quite beautifully.

Blackout/All Clear is too long by some distance. But when it gets things right, which is more often than not, it proves to be an excellent read. As the winner of the Hugo for best novel in 2011, I was expecting a good read, and so it proved to be. It's difficult to think of too many books I've read this year that either equal or better it. And to quote a great man, you'll like it if you're into the wibbly wobbley timey wimey... stuff.

The Hyperion Cantos

If I were to be asked right now what books I would take onto a desert island, with a maximum limit of ten, there would be very few automatic picks. Dune would go, as would The Windup Girl and Use of Weapons. However, beyond those three there would be very few easy picks. Would I take A Game of Thrones? Is Perdido Street Station worth reading again and again as one of very few books I'd read for the rest of my life? In short, I'd struggle to pick, in no small part because I would only want the very best with me.

Books one and two of the four-volume Hyperion Cantos would be among the contenders to go. If anyone hasn't read my reviews of both of them (Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, if you don't know the titles), I'd recommend they go and read them now. If you just need a recap, I think they're two of the finest space opera novels I've ever read. Both offer something different, with book one being a scene-setter for the apocalyptic second volume. Book two takes a more traditional structure, whereas book one adopts a structure not dissimilar to The Canterbury Tales, forcing each of the Shrike pilgrims to recount their backstory amidst a trek to save the universe as humanity knows it.

What I don't have is the time or inclination to explain in detail the world of Hyperion, other than that it's a richly detailed and multi-layered complex of advanced humanity. It's not simple. To get a real grasp on it, you need to read the books and gain understanding of the subtle interplays. We have the familiar extrapolated into the future. Familiar institutions such as the Catholic church and Judaism play an integral role. And then there's the mixture of the political and the personal and the technological, ranged against a backdrop of humanity's fundamentally fragile position.

With humanity in the form of the World Web under threat from the alien Ousters, the Shrike pilgrims are sent to Hyperion, a backwater planet, to visit the Shrike in the Time Tombs. One of the pilgrims will have their request - as explained in their back-stories - granted. The others will find themselves killed by the Shrike. In the mean time, we have the political intrigues and other dramas away from Hyperion, which mostly take place in The Fall of Hyperion.

The richness and the complexity of those two books is nothing short of remarkable. Without reading them it's difficult to appreciate all that goes into them. It would have been so easy for Dan Simmons to have written a simple adventure with cardboard cut-out characters and wafer-thin intrigue, but he didn't. The quest itself takes on an almost mythic scale as it progresses. The decision to go back and have each character tell his or her own backstory and motivations in what count as 80-page novellas helps this scale no end. The immersion is wonderful, made even more so by Simmons not taking us away from the main quest until the second book. But by then we've already seen the World Web, and it doesn't feel jarring to be moving among a separate set of characters - especially as the stories in the first book cover such a range of the experiences to be found in the World Web.

Clocking in at over 1,000 pages in total, the two books aren't short reads, but then this is the sort of duology you don't want to be short. I'd be lying if I said that it was a perfect space opera (because it isn't), but it's an absolutely essential read for anyone who likes a range of fiction. At times gasp-out-loud horrifying and at others heartwarming, this half of the Cantos might just be on that list of desert island books. That the ending actually manages to surprise and live up to its billing only adds to that high recommendation.

Unlikely to be on that list, however, are volumes three and four, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. I'll start by pointing out that this isn't because they're bad books: far from it. When I read them over the summer I thoroughly enjoyed them both, but they fell a way short of the standards of the first half of the Cantos. The depth of the previous duology just doesn't exist in these books, which is what most readers will feel the most keenly. Never mind that there's another brilliant connection to be felt with the characters, nor that the story itself is a pretty good one overall, the comparable shallowness comes across starkly with every page.

At the outset, Raoul Endymion is a tour guide on Hyperion, when he comes to commit murder - or so the courts say. At his execution he finds himself rescued by Martin Silenus, one of the Shrike pilgrims of the original books, and sent out on a quest through human space to protect the new messiah, Aenea. With the all-powerful Catholic church on his tail, it becomes a two-volume epic of high adventure.

Taken on its own, the Endymion part of the Cantos is excellent space opera. It just struggles with not being as deep or as epic (despite being longer) as the first two. It might just be me, but the prose never felt as dense or rich as it had been formerly, but that had no impact on how much I enjoyed it. The characters were still superbly drawn and there were still scenes to thrill and shock. Once again the ending of the second volume lived up to billing and brought with it a glorious poignancy and emotional depth that hadn't been seen since halfway through Hyperion. Everything ended up tying together in a satisfying - and most definitely not happy - ending.

However, there were drawbacks. Certain things felt cheap and ill thought-out. Take the re-emergence of Colonel Kassad, who feels like he's been thrown in simply as filler to make the last volume longer. It's not as tight, and there's a very little amount of bloatedness to it that doesn't become the lean, mean machine that The Hyperion Cantos is as a whole. But, that said, the drawbacks weren't integral to the book, and practically everything else was well plotted and superbly executed.

There's a lot I've missed out in this quick review of the four novels that make up the Cantos. There are a few reasons behind this (one of which is laziness, if truth be told - it's a Sunday afternoon and I don't particularly want to work too hard at anything), one of which is that I don't think I can do the series justice in just a few hundred words. The best thing anyone can do to do The Hyperion Cantos justice is to read it, because I guarantee a sensational read.

Nano and future plans

I finished Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin this morning. After a few days off work, which have been spent deep in fiction both of my own and others' devising, it was satisfying to complete it. As ever, GRRM realised his world well and sucked me in with believable and sympathetic characters. OK, so it wasn't A Song of Ice and Fire, but then what in fantasy is? I can think of maybe two series which rival it, and none which surpass it, although I have to make the admission that this could all change in time, with the last two books of the series yet to even have publication dates.

After 17 days and almost 34,000 words, the NaNo novel is well on the way. I'm not happy with the quality of writing, but the point is that I have to keep ploughing on. Once I finish it (with the target date the 27th of the month, rather than the 30th), it will be consigned to history. But it's helped me get writing on a large scale again, which is more important than the quality. It's also forced me to keep going where otherwise I would have given in. Rediscovering my stubborn streak might prove to be important.

When I started writing this post, I was taking a day away from writing to recuperate. I had forgotten how hard writing was when it was done over a period of time, and when it wasn't trivial amounts. The last time I completed a novel was March 2006, after a six-month blitz. Six and a half years down the line, I'm certain I'll finish this novel, lacking in quality though it is. It lacks so many things. There's no depth, no description, no real character. There's some human interest, but it's limited. With 1/3 of the novel to write, I'm going to start ratcheting up the action to the point where it becomes a caricature of the vampire novel.

But what's next? There's a few projects I want to work on, only one of which is of novel length. Most of the short stories I have in mind will probably take me a couple of weeks at 500 words a day (quality over quantity - NaNo's lesson needs to be learned, in that I can't produce both, unlike many writers). But I'm building up to the big one - there's a certain epic fantasy series that's been sitting unwritten for far too long. Once the little projects are out of the way, it's time to knuckle down and write it.

This! Is! NANO!

My output since August has been nil.

I'm talking of course about my writing. In every other aspect of my life my output has been gradually creeping up as my creativity is forced to a halt. Seventeen football matches played in eleven weeks is just one area I've been losing writing time to. Then there's attendance at a new church, and going to their Wednesday night course. Throw in the 40-hour work weeks and you'll be starting to get an overall picture of why I've allowed myself to fall out of practice.

But November starts next week, and with November comes Nanowrimo, the annual writing event. 50,000 words in 30 days sounds a challenge at the best of times, but when I get at most one night a week to myself (and when on that night I really want to collapse into bed with a good book rather than worry about my own output) it's going to be near-impossible. But I'm doing it anyway. I have a story idea that may not get me anywhere near 50,000 words, but that's not the real point of this month for me. The point is to get myself writing again. Come 1st December I want to be looking at a reasonable quantity of good quality work that I can take forward to the rewriting and editing process, even if it's likely to never go anywhere near a publisher.

Do I have an idea? The best answer I can give to that question is 'sort of'. A few rogue concepts are kicking around in my mind, given life in no small part by my 4-day blitz on the backlog of short stories sitting on my bedside. The excellent 'Strigoi' by Lavie Tidhar (Interzone 242) and 'Sunshine' by Nina Allen (Black Static 29) are just two of the stories that I'm mulling over in my mind. Old frustrations from my months out of work last year are also at the forefront of my thinking. If I could somehow combine those concepts and put my own signature on it, I may be able to produce something.

Whatever I decide to produce I have no doubt that I'll find this year's Nano a real challenge. Constraints of time and other activities will curtail my writing time, and being out of practice will no doubt initially frustrate me. But if I stick at it, I'll be able to get something done. And it's a challenge I'm looking forward to.

Redemption Ark

I've spent much of the week feeling guilty about my neglect of this blog. There's firstly the nagging irritation of having not posted for a little while, which grows exponentially with each day that passes without putting keyboard to text box. And then there's Wednesday night, where I had my many opinions introduced to someone new by someone saying, 'He blogs,' and then nodding sagely while I looked for an excuse as to why I haven't even tried to say anything on here for a while.

So here we have it: a review of Redemption Ark, the second volume in the Revelation Space series by Welsh hard SF author Alastair Reynolds.

Reynolds has become a favourite of mine of the past couple of years. His short fiction is rich and varied, flicking between zany (dinosaurs in rock bands, anyone?) and serious (the end of the world, rich men in cryogenic fugue, and faction wars). Add to that the kind of English prose I would love to write - clean, clear, detailed, but still able to convey a sense of action driving forward - and you've got one of the foremost writers of short SF out there at the moment.

His longer work was a different story until I picked up the novellas Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days earlier in the year. I first read Revelation Space in around 2009, and I thought it was an inconsistent piece of work. Reynolds' inexperience shone through; the prose was still technically excellent, but there was no sense of action moving on much of the time. And then, every now and then, there would be a scene which showed Reynolds' potential - one of a deserted lighthugger being commanded by a mad captain while a woman tried to exert control was particularly chilling, because Reynolds managed to strike a near-perfect balance between his technical prose, building atmosphere, and driving action with the narrative. But it was, by and large, a frustrating, poorly-paced book which only really kicked into gear in the last hundred or so pages. My inclination to pick up Redemption Ark was hardly overwhelming

Then I read the two novellas (I'm certain I've reviewed them, but I might be wrong), and I decided that it wasn't such a bad idea to give Reynolds' long fiction a second chance. Diamond Dogs in particular seemed to have sorted the problems with pacing that dogged Revelation Space. And although Redemption Ark clocks in at over 600 pages, more than 100 more than its predecessor, I had no qualms about picking it up.

Some back story (and a spoiler warning): In Revelation Space we are introduced to the planet Resurgam, an outpost colony on the edge of human-occupied space with an interesting archaeological past - it previously had intelligent life that had been mysteriously wiped out. It turns out that they were wiped out by an intelligence known as the Inhibitors, whose entire goal is to wipe out species as they attain space travel. We are also introduced to Reynolds' hard SF universe, where the laws of physics may be bent but not broken - so no FTL travel (the most notable thing when compared with Iain M. Banks' Culture series or Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. The Inhibitors want to wipe humankind off the face of the universe because they have interstellar travel. Throw in some potentially memorable characters who just don't quite work, big concepts handled in a way where they don't have the gravitas they should, and some serious intrigue, and that's the sum of Revelation Space's parts.

Redemption Ark, whilst being a direct sequel to Revelation Space, stands perfectly well on its own two feet and its own merits. The above will become clear to readers in time, which is all well and good because, despite the new cast and a few new settings, old faces pop up and the focal point of the story is, once again, Resurgam and the Inhibitors. The main plot point is that there's a cache of doomsday weapons which could save humanity in orbit around Resurgam (left there in Revelation Space), and a variety of factions want control over them. Of course, it's not quite that simple, but to distil the essence of a complex space opera like this down to anything other than that is much trickier than it sounds. We have intrigue, complex characters, a multi-threaded plot that converges at the end to explosive effect, big ideas that are pulled off superbly, and, perhaps most importantly, we have a book that really can be enjoyed.

Those complaints I made above? Most of them just don't apply to Redemption Ark. The pacing issue is sorted. The characters are complex but each has more than a little pathos. Perhaps the main complaint to be made is of the handful of superfluous plot-lines that could have been cut to make Redemption Ark a little more accessible to the casual reader, but then what casual reader wants to have to understand the physical underpinning principles of a writer's universe before getting into the story? And that's probably another complaint: there are a handful of infodumps which just interrupt the flow a little.

But those criticisms are minor. It's easy to get into Redemption Ark and connect with the universe and the characters. Comparisons with the Culture are justified; although the content is different, there's enough in common to see where Redemption Ark is strong against such as Use of Weapons, and that it's a worthy read. As mentioned before, you don't need to read the first book in the series to get into Redemption Ark, and, although it's time-consuming, I highly recommend reading it.

An unacceptable state of affairs

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached a defining moment in British politics.

Actually, let me revise that opening sentence; we reached the point some time ago, but we didn't notice it. Petty political posturing has now got more place in our politics than trying to do good. Ignoring the facts is acceptable so long as it's covered by a political attack.

If anyone hasn't seen the Observer article by Nick Cohen, I'd advise them to head over to the Guardian website and read it. For those pressed for time, Save The Children has launched an appeal to raise £500,000 for needy children in Britain, and has found itself under attack from Conservatives and their supporting newspapers.

It's the first time the charity has launched such an appeal in living memory, and it's asking only to raise the money for the essentials - 'a hot meal, blankets, a warm bed'. That they even have to launch such an appeal raises serious questions about the way this country is going. But to then attack the campaign as obscene on grounds that the chief executive of Save The Children has left-wing political links goes beyond the pale.

At the very least, the government should be conducting a serious investigation into the decline in living standards. We have people visiting an ever-growing number of food banks (and not just the unemployed - with wages frozen and benefits for working families cut, more and more employed families can't afford to feed themselves), a state of affairs associated more with post-Wall Street Crash America and the Great Depression than twenty-first century Britain. Child poverty - cut by almost a million under the last Labour government - is increasing exponentially. In Yorkshire, one in three children has gone hungry in recent months. And all Conservative MPs do is sneer and make political attacks, when they should be using the power they have to do something.

This government doesn't care about the people of this country. The rank and file of the nation could be dying in the streets and all the people in charge would care about would be lining their own pockets and facilitating the fraudulent funding of their pet projects.

I'm going to write to my MP. I don't expect a response (not least because he spends more time in court working as a defence barrister in serious sexual cases than in Westminster), but I'll be writing all the same, to both his Westminster office and his chambers in Leeds. I hope I won't be alone.

Railsea

China Miéville would appear to have a thing for trains and ships.

The evidence is clear, m'lud. Iron Council had an eponymous train that gave New Crobuzon hope against the totalitarian regime in power there. It wasn't a bit-part player. It formed the crux of the whole novel. And then there's Iron Council's predecessor in Bas-Lag, The Scar. The floating city, Armada, gave us a memorable setting made up of thousands of lashed-together ships. Like the Iron Council, Armada was a hotbed of political scheming and misdirection all based around a mode of transportation.

And Railsea combines the two.

In Railsea, trains are talked about in nautical terms. It's a world without oceans, but with a rich and varied world. We have the railsea itself, an inhospitable land punctuated by habitable islands, where burrowing megafauna dominate and humans need to travel the rails of the railsea to get from place to place. Sham Yes ap Soorap is a doctor's assistant aboard the Medes, a moletrain that goes to railsea to hunt the megafauna. And what follows from the blockbuster opening is an old-fashioned sea adventure story, complete with pirates, mythology, wild battles with impossible creatures... and a distinct lack of water.

I like China Miéville. Most people will already have twigged that. In the last two years I've read all the Bas-Lag novels, plus The City and the City and Embassytown. None of them has been a let-down; all of them have been phenomenal read, and all for different reasons. In its style and scope, Railsea has most in common with Bas-Lag - the grotesque beauty of another world eerily close to our own will be familiar to most of the initiated. Throw in an epic adventure where the little man takes centre stage and it becomes a must-read for Bas-Lag fans. It may not be in the same world, but there's a steampunk feel, as well as there being something a little 'off' about the setting.

Being for younger readers, all aspects of Miéville's usually verbose vocabulary are pared down. It's still a little spicy for the really young 'uns, and I think most readers under a certain age would still be daunted by the complexity of Miéville's prose, but as a stepping stone to his adult work I can't see a better option. Older readers will still love it, and I know that I will thoroughly recommend it to anyone who asks.

There's plenty I could say about the literary influences behind it - such as Moby Dick and Robinson Crusoe - but in truth you don't need to know about them to enjoy the book. It's just an added literary Easter egg.