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 Wise Man's Fear

Patrick Rothfuss's beard is fantastic. In the moody black and white photos of him on his website, it's clearly the star performer. Even the 'Joss Whedon is my master now' t-shirt can't topple something of such wild beauty. Had Galen Tyrol's fledgling stubble in Battlestar Galactica been allowed to grow to its fullest extent, it would surely have matched it, but as it is it stands alone, its facial follicles unsurpassed.

You're probably getting tired of hearing about Patrick Rothfuss's beard at this point. I'm pretty sick of writing about it. I certainly grew tired of one thing in particular in The Wise Man's Fear, the second novel of Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles: hearing about Kvothe's hair.

Let's start at the beginning. The Name of the Wind was the first novel from Rothfuss. It focussed on a barman, Kote, telling of his past as the legendary Kvothe, before he started to live in hiding as a red-headed landlord. As is standard in fantasy novels, Kvothe was orphaned and lived rough for a few years before, through sheer nerve, blagging his way into a prestigious educational institution, the University, to study to become an arcanist, the world's equivalent of a sorcerer. It was an enjoyable read, being fast-paced, with interesting characters and a well-realised world, ticking all the basic fantasy boxes and then taking a step beyond as it unfolded to become a story told with flair.

Did I mention that Kvothe was red-headed?

The storytelling medium is Kvothe himself, talking to a travelling chronicler. The first novel covers the first day of Kvothe telling his tale. In between times, other things happen in the present - this is a story told on two apparently separate (but I suspect otherwise) levels, one happening while Chronicler takes down Kvothe's memoirs, the other the memoirs themselves. The Wise Man's Fear follows the same narrative structure - as presumably the rest of the series will be as well - and picks up where The Name of the Wind left off.

By the way, Kvothe is a flame-haired magiciany bloke.

Being quite honest, it feels at times like the story barely moves on. But we do at least get to see the development of a character first-hand. We were told in the first volume that Kvothe was a fearsome warrior and magician, and throughout The Wise Man's Fear he grows into this role. He was a young and relatively innocent boy at the start. Two years down the line, we're starting to see a hardened man who is far easier to reconcile with the barkeeper telling the story. And the joy of it is that the development feels natural. Offhand, there aren't any sudden breaks in his development where Kvothe suddenly leaps from being one thing to another. Transition is smooth and barely noticeable. Even when he seems to do something out of character (as he does twice), there is a reasonable explanation that doesn't hinder the book.

The other characters are interesting as well. The enigmatic Denna provides a focal point for Kvothe's attentions, and she retains her mercurial air throughout. Elodin, Master Namer at the University (for a fuller explanation, read the books - it's easier that way), is also enigmatic, but he's also convincingly borderline insane. And then there are others.

But that's a problem. The location shifts on a regular basis. Whilst the University provides a base of sorts, we're taken elsewhere several times and this means we're introduced to a new set of characters, who need to be fleshed out and developed. In terms of the scale of the cast, it's large enough to rival George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, but Rothfuss has yet to develop Martin's mastery of a large set of characters. Many characters feel paper-thin. Too many appear and then suddenly disappear, never to be heard from again. Rothfuss is on occasion reduced to telling us facts about these characters and then advancing. In some ways, he's been over-ambitious, writing things above his ability.

He also indulges in a few irritating habits. He insists on telling us Kvothe's skills time and again (as well as the fact he's red-headed). I certainly didn't forget that Kvothe's a fantastic musician; but it's like Rothfuss doesn't trust his audience. He didn't do this in his first book (or if he did, I didn't notice). I accept that the second novel is tough after a successful first, but Rothfuss doesn't quite do himself justice.

It's still not bad. At times, it can be very good. Kvothe is a sympathetic character, and it's easy to like his cheek and wit. But I was hoping for more.

Caprica

Anyone who knows me knows my love for Ronald D. Moore's reimagined Battlestar Galactica. I've yet to see a finer series. Nothing else has managed to capture the modern mentality towards differences in society whilst providing an illuminating allegory to the War on Terror. Then there's the last season, which, despite its bleak tone, carries a message of hope for humanity. And all of this without mentioning the core narrative of man on the run from a superior enemy that has forced the human race from its home after an attempted genocide on a massive scale.

The Cylons were an intriguing set of characters. They were human, but with a different psychology coming from their robotic roots and some unusual religious beliefs. They didn't believe in the polytheistic religion of the Twelve Colonies; instead, their beliefs lay in the worship of one true God.

Caprica tells of a time before the First Cylon War, when Cylons were invented. This is before even the initial 'they rebelled' bit of the opening titles of Galactica, when the Twelve Colonies weren't one supernation, but were fractured states. Daniel Graystone, computer genius and CEO of Graystone Industries, has a contract to fulfil, providing mechanised soldiers for a Caprican defence programme. His daughter is caught up in a terror attack (one she's linked to, in a way), and ends up dead. She's also a computer genius, and has secretly synthesised true artificial intelligence - or, as Cylons would probably have it, a soul in something artificial - which takes her form in a virtual world. We meet Joseph Adama, father of Admiral William Adama, who is a mob lawyer in Caprica City, and have a major side-plot involving gangsters and family homour in the vein of plenty of mob films.

The most intriguing character is Clarice Willow - played by Polly Walker, Atia of the Julii in Rome - who is Caprica's closest equivalent to Gaius Baltar. She's the leader of a cell of monotheistic terrorists - the Soldiers of the One - who provide the series with an interesting focal point. Working out their intentions is difficult, to a point. Are they evil or misguided in their pursuit of Apotheosis, or resurrection? What is obvious is that they're utterly ruthless. In a series of few action sequences, where the drama is largely personal, they give us a few moments of very strong violence. Seeing failed Soldiers of the One candidates lined up and shot is one of the series' most shocking moments.

Caprica has a major problem: it can't quite decide what it is. Too many episodes feel like they're a mismatch of ideas. At times the series seems to decide what path it will follow, and as a result there is an excellent episode or two. But these moments are few and far between. Part 1 has perhaps two episodes from nine which could be described as very good; part two has a similar ratio of very good episodes to those produced, one of which is the final episode. In between times, there are moments of excellence, but rarely more than one or two an episode.

That Caprica is a Battlestar Galactica prequel and is made by the same people is apparent throughout with things like camera angles, dropped hints of the future and references to Galactica ('The shape of things to come' from the final moments is one of the most obvious references, but there are plenty of others). Production values are high, and the acting standard is also good. There are also actors and actresses popping up in new roles, such as Luciana Carro (Kat, Starbuck's constant irritant, in Galactica), and Christian Tessier (Duck, another pilot).

But it serves as a constant reminder to what Caprica doesn't achieve. Battlestar Galactica is one of the essential TV shows to watch of this century, and one of the greatest of all time. Caprica is merely decent, convoluted in places, with some excellent moments.

To a Galactica fan, it will be essential viewing. It answers questions about the inception of the Cylons and their religious beliefs - and at times does it well - as well as providing an insight into the origins of everyone's favourite Admiral. The series finale will catch the eye for others, being what the series should have been throughout rather than for 41 minutes. But if you're not a Galactica fan the series may leave you feeling alienated with its glacial pace and convoluted storytelling.

The Forever War

There's a set of clichés that attach themselves to war stories like limpets to rock. 'War is hell'. 'Soldiering is nine-tenths boredom and one-tenth terror'. 'Somewhere there's a bullet with your name on it'. Sometimes something is produced that manages transcend the clichés and become truly memorable for its particular depiction of war - an obvious example is Blackadder Goes Forth - although more often than not we're left with the same tired depictions which come back to the same old sayings. It's not to say that those idioms aren't true - because they clearly are - but I'd argue that we've all heard them so often that we've become desensitised. Which is why when something exceptional does come along we heap well-deserved praise on the book or film or series.

The Forever War is hardly new. It was written in the mid-1970s by Joe Haldeman, a veteran of the Vietnam war. It won the Hugo and Nebula awards, and became the first title to be released as part of the SF Masterworks imprint from Gollancz. Rumour even has it that it was written as a response to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

It's not even new to me. I read it when I was 17, just after I first read Dune. At the time I was struck by the violence. Some of the emotional impact was fairly hopelessly lost on me, as was much of the cultural significance of what Haldeman was saying. All I knew was that I was being treated to a rip-roaring story about the horrors of war.

I've grown up since then, but it hasn't stopped me enjoying the re-read. The story remains as strong as ever. William Mandella is a young man conscripted to the United Nations Explorer Force (UNEF) following the Elite Conscription Act. He has an IQ of over 150 and the physical attributes needed to fight humanity's newly-discovered enemy, the Taurans. He - and 99 others - are trained up (which is where we come in, with the memorable opening line, 'Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man'), and then sent off to fight in a series of hellish encounters.

Thanks to time dilation (a topic I'm not convinced is covered accurately by Haldeman, but I'm no expert on the subject), when the recruits get back to Earth decades have passed while they have only aged a matter of a couple of years. Mandella is incapable of adjusting to the new Earth, being alienated by the massive changes in society, and chooses to re-enter the army with Marygay Potter. Yet more military fun and frolics ensue.

The whole book is good. The action scenes are brutal, with matter-of-fact descriptions of horrific injuries. In between, we have the military discipline and turmoil of a man who doesn't particularly want to be there. Mandella is a sympathetic character, and he's easy enough to like.

But, for me, the most haunting part of it isn't anything to do with the battles or the science or the sex (and there's quite a bit of that, on the quiet). It's the return to Earth. The soldiers are warned beforehand of the changes, but it's jarring once they get there. Mandella's inability to adjust to the planet he has been fighting for is almost heartbreaking. There's a palpable sense of almost traumatic alienation throughout the sequence, which only lasts for 30 pages or so, but which sticks with me more strongly than any of the blood and guts. All he has throughout is the companionship of Marygay, one of his co-enlisted. Eventually, the couple choose to join up again, the army being the only thing they're adjusted for.

It's this which marks The Forever War out as an exceptional war novel. Haldeman's own experiences come through strongly (and some feel that The Forever War has an autobiographical element to it - I for one wouldn't disagree with them), and they leave an almost bitter taste in the mouth. It's a war novel that makes you think beyond the battlefield, and one I'd recommend to anyone. Whilst the clichés are there, Haldeman works expertly with them to bring home more than just the bombs and bullets.

Sadly for Haldeman, I've yet to come across anything else which even comes close to The Forever War. Its sequel, Forever Free, was a train-wreck of a novel, the companion novel Forever Peace merely passable and the short stories I've read have been underwhelming. But if you're going to write one great novel, it's better that it's something like The Forever War.

Hi ho, hi ho, a-novelling we go

I can never work out whether I listen to Feeder because I'm depressed or whether it's because I'm listening to Feeder that I'm depressed. All that needs to be known is that at the end of a long week I'm listening to Feeder and feeling distinctly introspective and deflated. Something tells me I need to listen to something that'll get me fired up.

Unsurprisingly, I've not had much time for writing over the last few weeks. Work has had me exhausted and at the end of most days I've not wanted to pore over many words - it's my job to read thousands of pages of records every week. More often it's been a case of tea, kill time on the internet, watch an episode of Caprica and then bed.

But it's not stopped me doing a little writing. I've managed to get some sent off over the last few weeks, and I've been making sure that I'm gathering Lab Ways influences to me. This has entailed purchasing the full box-set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spending time making pointless notes before finally setting finger to keyboard and writing 300 words last weekend. This weekend I plan on writing more.

How much more? I really don't know. I've occasionally thought of trying to get someone as a reader to encourage me to produce more work rather than ditching the project a few weeks after I start it on grounds of frustration, having tried to draft the opening six or seven times and getting no further than perhaps 6,000 words in (out of a projected 125,000). But I don't really want to do that.

Instead, what I want to do is get rid of the frustrations I have with my own writing and just cut loose. I want a few sessions where I write 2,000 words a time. I want weeks where I write 15,000 words. But I have the problem where my own perfectionist nature will take over. I sometimes think if I can get a buffer of 30,000 words behind me I'll be able to crack on. And so it is once more that I try to get this novel out of the way.

I'll be having a full afternoon on it tomorrow, and probably an hour or two on Sunday. The target is 5,000 words, beginning with Chapter Two. Chapter One will wait until later.

Every man and his rights

I can't help but notice that the Conservatives don't seem to be able to keep their noses out of the human rights issue. One of their election pledges was to repeal the Human Rights Act 1999, Theresa May criticised the Act in her Party Conference speech last year, and just yesterday David Cameron made a speech to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, criticising the court.

There are many things to say on each issue. Repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a more comprehensive Act, which does more than merely enact the European Convention of Human Rights in a limited fashion into British law, wouldn't be a bad thing. Had Theresa May criticised the Act in those terms, there wouldn't have been a problem. And had David Cameron merely criticised the bureaucracy of the European Court of Human Rights in allowing such a massive backlog of cases build up, I wouldn't have had a problem (given the delay in cases being heard I'd even go so far as to say the ECtHR itself is in violation of Article 6 of the ECHR - the right to a fair trial).

But that wasn't what was said in any of these major cases.

The Conservatives promised to introduce a 'Bill of Rights' to replace the HRA. The idea itself was nebulous, and information about the Bill itself is sketchy. Whether it would contain provision enacting the ECHR into British law isn't clear. Even assuming it would, it would be fair to say that it would be a far narrower document because of what has been said by the Conservatives in criticising the HRA. They feel it gets in the way. It's an inconvenience when it comes to dealing with foreign nationals (more specifically, deporting foreign nationals). According to Theresa May, one man wasn't deported because of the enactment of Article 8 of the ECHR (right to a private and family life), which meant that because he had a cat he couldn't be moved. That whole story is rubbish (in making the decision a tribunal won't consider a moggy as part of the private and family life), but it serves to illustrate perfectly the annoyance that the Conservatives have at the HRA.

I have a gripe - and a big one - with the HRA. It's not that it's too broad and allows convicted foreign nationals to remain in the country when their home nation is likely to kill them. It's that it doesn't go far enough. The courts can only declare an Act of Parliament incompatible with the ECHR, and it's then at the Secretary of State's discretion whether or not they act to make the relevant provision compatible. Should the Secretary of State decline to make an amendment, then the injustice ultimately continues. The courts don't have sufficient powers to rein in Parliament other than essentially issue a strong telling-off that no one will take a blind bit of notice of. It's about time that courts did have the power to force politicians to act and amend legislation rather than just express an opinion about policy.

This impotence is the big problem that has led to a backlog of cases at Strasbourg. ECtHR bureaucracy will have played a part in allowing the backlog to become so large, but the question has to be asked about why there are so many cases going through in the first place. In our case it's because the courts don't have sufficient powers to remedy a situation - although the ECtHR hardly has any more - and we have had several governments who thought they could pass legislation what was in breach of the ECHR (and were sadly right).

So now we have David Cameron criticising the European Court, despite the problem being at home. And my biggest problem isn't even the fact he's missed the major problem about the backlog of case: it's that in his speech he trivialised human rights as a whole in declaring that the ECtHR should only concentrate on the big cases and let home governments get on with their own policy.

Cameron has forgotten the underlying purpose behind the ECHR itself: to enshrine the rights of human beings so that abuses such as those seen in the Second World War could never happen again. And it's not just the basics - right to life, right to freedom from torture, right to freedom from slavery - that it's enshrined. Article 14 prohibits discrimination on any ground (I wonder if Theresa May has seen it - if she has she's probably going to ignore it). Article 12 is also an interesting one (read it with Article 14, and you'll see exactly what I mean). If it's enshrined in the ECHR then someone has a right to take it to a national and eventually European court to argue for their right under it. Every human right is a major issue, not something to be trivialised. It's not for a pig-headed politician to tell the ECtHR what it should and shouldn't listen to because he doesn't like certain things going before it, hiding his attack behind the veil of attacking bureaucracy.

The ECtHR does need to speed up getting through its caseload, that much is certain. But to suggest that it should concentrate only on certain cases and let national governments have their own way on certain issues undermines the very concept of a pan-European convention. Regardless of what the right-wing press think, the ECHR is one of the most important documents drafted in the history of Western civilisation, on a level above even the Magna Carta. It's about time that the Tories learned to respect what it does.

Son of Heaven (Chung Kuo Recast 1)

It may be that I come to regret these words, but I don't think I'll be racing back to David Wingrove's Chung Kuo Recast series to devour the next volume as a matter of any urgency. There is, of course, every chance that I'll pick up Daylight on Iron Mountain at some point in the future, but it's not on my essential reads list.

To be fair, Son of Heaven wasn't on my essential reads list either. I was aware of it after it got a good write-up in Interzone, but I already had a dozen books to be getting on with (including the peerless The Windup Girl). But it was only when it became available as Amazon's daily Kindle deal that I felt compelled to splash out the princely sum of 99p for the privilege of having it sit unread on my Kindle for the best part of six months.

Son of Heaven is the first volume of the recast series. Chung Kuo was first released as an eight-book series in the late 80s and into the 90s. I've never read it, but as I understand it it gained a strong following as it told its tale of the rise of China in the future. David Wingrove took the decision to rewrite it as a 20-book series (do you see one reason why I'm a bit reluctant to get stuck in to the whole series?), and Son of Heaven appeared in the middle of 2011.

Set in a post-apocalyptic Dorset village for the most part, Son of Heaven follows Jake Reed and his family and friends. We find out the nature of the catastrophe that has seen a return to almost-feudal times in the Western world, and follow the day-to-day existence of the village for the rest of the time. I have a bit of a problem with this, or, more specifically, with the way it's structured. I don't have a problem with flashbacks and telling the backstory (as the apocalypse itself is told), but I do have a problem when it results in a complete change of pace and focus. It would have been better, in my opinion, to have somehow interspersed the apocalypse with the main narrative, keeping the pacing going and not rendering the idling early scenes almost irrelevant.

Being quite honest, there are around 100 pages that could have done with cutting or restructuring. It may be my own personal taste, but it felt like nothing happened for the opening third of the book only to be plunged into the flashbacks where it was all action. Looked at as a whole, the structure just about works, providing ample prelude to what eventually comes about in the end. But it could be improved so it doesn't feel like reading it is a drag. When things do happen they feel nastily out of place.

Wingrove is actually a pretty good writer. His style is brisk and readable. I just found myself annoyed by the amount of profanity he used. Seldom did a page go by without a 'fuck' or some other strong profanity. I get it, strong language is realistic, but did he have to make it so noticeable? Another issue with his writing I had was his almost-embarrassed handling of sex scenes. I'm confident I could write several better than at least one of them in Son of Heaven (and there are a few, let me tell you). 'Her hands cupped his sex' is about as good as it gets. And then there were the unintentionally hilarious moments ('the odious Wang' being my personal favourite).

So it's fair to say I didn't enjoy Son of Heaven as much as I would have liked. It had its moments, but to me they felt like they were few and far between. If I see the next volume going cheap, I might pick it up because it did feel, towards the end, like there was real promise in Chung Kuo Recast. The premise of a rising China is in itself interesting and relevant. I just wish there hadn't been so much mucking about at first.