It’s my opinion that Peter Watts’s Blindsight is the best hard science fiction novel of the first decade of this millennium—and I say that as someone who remains unconvinced of all the ramifications of its central argument. Watts is one of the crown princes of science fiction’s most difficult subgenre: his work is rigorous, unsentimental, and full of the sort of brilliant little moments of synthesis that make a nerd’s brain light up like a pinball machine. But he’s also a poet—a damned fine writer on a sentence level, who can make you feel the blank Lovecraftian indifference of the sea floor or of interplanetary space with the same ease facility with which he can pen an absolutely breathtaking passage of description. His characters have personalities and depth, and if most of them aren’t very nice people, well, that’s appropriate to the dystopian hellholes they inhabit.

[Read more]

There are a lot of coming-of-age stories in fantasy. They're a staple of the genre; some might go so far as to say a cliché. But Among Others (excerpt available here) is far from your father's fantasy Bildungsroman, and not just because it transfers the story of a girl growing up to more-or-less modern-day Wales.

In fact, it's not really a Bildungsroman at all. Nor, despite featuring a sixteen-year-old heroine, is it a coming-of-age story. Because as the story starts, our heroine has already come of age. This is a book that concerns itself far more with surviving trauma and finding a place in the world than with finding one's self.  Morwenna Phelps has already faced her worst monster, emerging scarred for life, with an indeterminate victory that cost the life of her twin sister.

[Spoilers are off at boarding school for the term]

It’s an interesting experience being asked to review Hull Zero Three—a bit like stepping into an alternate universe, in some ways. Because this book bears a superficial resemblance to my own Jacob’s Ladder trilogy—Dust, Chill, and Grail—in that both are about derelict generation ships gone to mysterious and awful biomechanical fecundity, whose histories conceal awful secrets and whose surviving crews must struggle with a series of knotty ethical dilemmas.

What can I say? You railroad when it’s railroading time.

But the thing that makes it interesting is not how similar the books are, but—given their parallel premises—how very different. Because while a quick plot summary makes them sound very like, Hull Zero Three is very much its own thing.

[No real spoilers here]

This is the third in a series of reviews of spec fic by stealth. The rest are here.

At first glance, Tony Scott’s Unstoppable might appear to be just Speed on a train. But I submit to you that not only is it a much better movie than Speed—Unstoppable is one of the best thrillers I’ve seen in a long time—but that it’s uniquely suited to a science fiction audience. Throughout the film, I found myself comparing it not to Speed, but to Tom Godwin’s legendary science fiction short “The Cold Equations.” Not because Unstoppable revolves around a moral quandary supported by a contrived narrative, but because it sets up its premise and parameters and then follows them ruthlessly to the end.

To wit: a half-mile long freight train weighing in excess of a million pounds and carrying hazardous material is headed for a 15-mph curve in a Harrisberg/Scrantonesque cryptomunicipality in Pennsylvania at 71 miles per hour. Due to human error, the behemoth is unmanned, and the air brakes are not operational.

What do you do?

[The train, it won’t stop going. No way to slow down]

If you hadn’t guessed from the tags, “Barbara Hamilton” is a somewhat transparent pseudonym for SFF’s own Barbara Hambly. I reviewed the first of her Abigail Adams mysteries here last year around this time.

A Negro slave is missing. The King’s Special Commissioner—a man of limited popularity in pre-Revolution Boston—has been murdered. And Abigail Adams is on the job.

More than anything else about Hamilton/Hambly’s work, I think I love the way she writes marriages. They make me think that I might like to be married, which is a pretty good trick given my track record. The central relationship in these books—that of Abigail and John Adams, one of the most famous (and famously well-documented, given the status of both of its members as compulsive letter-writers) romances in American history—is delightful. It’s writen in delightful nuance, neither saccharine nor flat nor overly “romancy,” but just the daily life of two strong and nonconformist people who have well-worn in to each others tics and quirks through the years.

Abigail is also a cunning protagonist: she’s smart and bold and completely believable as an 18th-century woman of very good sense and a strong belief in justice. Likewise, I can’t fault Hamilton’s worldbuilding. Her wintry Boston of the late colonial era rings as true as if you’d dropped a silver coin on its stones.

[Which is not to say I am bereft of quibbles]

This is the second in a series of reviews of spec fic by stealth. The whole list is here.

Wayne Kramer’s 2003 drama The Cooler is one of urban fantasy’s best-kept secrets. It’s also one of the very few cinematic representations of Las Vegas that ring true to me, as a long-term former resident of the city where you’re not supposed to remember that not everybody’s a tourist.

The Cooler, like the short-lived FX comedy Lucky, focuses on the lives of the people who eke out a living in the margins of Sin City—cocktail waitresses, washed-up lounge acts, old-school Vegas mobsters failing to adapt in the shadow of the new corporate moneymakers that now run the town. And one Bernie Lootz, played brilliantly by William H. Macy—a guy so unlucky he’s contagious. Really, really contagious. Magically so.

[You blindsided me, Bernie Lootz. I didn’t see it coming. You shouldn’t do that to a girl]

There’s a long literary tradition of legendary “only” novels—books with no siblings, authors who only published one novel—and Raphael Carter’s The Fortunate Fall is one of them. It’s been reviewed extensively—here at Tor.com, among other places, by our own Jo Walton—and remains widely admired.

And it is, in fact, admirable. And rich enough to reward repeated reading and discussion.

Among its other strengths, The Fortunate Fall is a beautifully constructed first-person narrative, told from the point of view of Maya Andreyeva, a “camera.” Which is to say, a person whose entire career is devoted to being a first-person point of view for faceless, amorphous millions. She broadcasts a full-sensation telepresence to the net.

[Here there be no spoilers of significance]

This is the first in a series of posts discussing various works that may be considered “stealth” speculative fiction—by which I mean, science fiction that is not marketed as such, but which undeniably embraces speculative elements. This may include movies, books, plays, poetry, and anything else that catches my eye.

Good. Whew. Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Anne Fortier’s Juliet.

Juliet is the story of Julie Jacobs, a woman orphaned at a young age in Italy and raised by her Aunt Rose in America, who returns to Italy after the death of her aunt seeking some clue as to her family history. She’s been both urged to and cautioned against this trip, but she’s left with little option, as her aunt’s entire estate has been willed to Julie’s despised sister Janice, and Julie (feckless, unemployed, and deep in debt) is left with only a ticket to Italy, the name of a bank manager, and a passport in her birth name—which turns out not to be Julie Jacobs at all.

[A plague on both your houses!]

So—shock of shockers here, I know—I really like Ted Chiang, and not just because he’s got really awesome hair and is proof that it’s still possible to amass a very good reputation as an SF writer while sticking to a focus on short work. My favorite story of his to date is “Stories of Your Life,” which may have made me have to find a Kleenex quickly.

In short, I jumped at the opportunity to review his new novella from Subterranean, The Lifecycle of Software Objects.

This? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very peculiar little book, and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. Chiang gives us a rapid overview of the evolution and abandonment of a species of digital pet that may—or may not—be evolving artificial intelligence, and a very cogent overview of how people might respond... the ones that even notice.

[Spoilers want to marry out of their species]

For those who are familiar with the ouvre of Diane Duane, Omnitopia Dawn will seem a departure. Duane is best known for her fantasy: the Young Wizards series of children’s books and their spinoff novels about wizard cats, and the seemingly eternally incomplete Tales of the Five series, which seem to be linked to these others by way of universe.

Omnitopia Dawn is something very different—a near-future science fiction novel structured like a thriller, rather than an epic fantasy revolving around the moral judgments of human or feline wizards. I think it’s more fair to consider it as a thriller than as science fiction, actually, because while it does ask some questions about how future technologies may affect human interactions, those are not its central concerns.

[Spoilers aren’t really spoilers at all]

When I was a kid, children’s books that had magic in them almost always seemed to end with the kids giving up the magic because they had earned their character growth and could be adults now. At the time, I thought this was bogus and lame, and it’s a good part of the reason I liked Oz and John Bellairs so very fiercely.

John Bellairs never made anybody give their magic up to hold down a day job.

I find that even as an adult, I am feeling a similar fierce loyalty to Greg van Eekhout’s middle-grade novel Kid Vs. Squid, despite the fact that the second-billed squid doesn’t make an appearance until very late in the novel, which seems to me a bit of false advertising.

On the other hand, I couldn’t pass up a title like Kid Vs. Squid either. So who am I to judge?

[So other than the squid, what’s this book like then?]

First, I must confess my bias: ever since we shared a particularly challenging convention guest appearance a few years back, I have considered Paolo Bacigalupi a fast friend, and I am absolutely delighted by the critical and reader attention his recent books have been getting.

That said—man oh man, this boy can write. And worldbuild, and make you feel for his characters.

Ship Breaker (Little, Brown, 2010) is a YA science fiction novel—more sociological/adventure than hard SF, but one that takes an unflinching look at what life may be like for the majority of people in the Western world given a few more decades of ecological degradation, economic collapse, global climate change, governmental failure, and corporate pillage. I say “the Western world” because in all honesty, the future this book portrays is a world that most human beings on Earth already live in—surviving as scavengers, repurposing scraps, living on the margins and the waste of wealthier cultures, existing to be exploited and discarded.

[Spoilers want to steal your gold]

Jonathan Lethem’s debut novel (Topeka Bindery, 1994) has one of the best titles I’ve ever heard. It is everything a title should be—iconic, inventive, intriguing, thematic. I admit, I read the book for the title, not really expecting that it would live up.

It does. The book, too, is iconic, inventive, intriguing, thematic. On the face of it, Gun, with Occasional Music is a classic hard-boiled detective novel with a series of well-worn science fictional genre twists (anthropomorphic animals; totalitarian dystopia), but this particular novel manages to engage with its genre trappings while not being constrained by them.

[Read more...]

I’m going to out myself right now and say I did not understand the last paragraph of this novel. I have several theories about what just happened, mind, but I’m not convinced of any of them, and so it goes with John Crowley’s Little, Big on the short shelf of books I really pretty much liked but feel like I have assigned my own ending to, in a sort of Rorschachian fashion, based on some interesting ink blots that the author provided.

In the case of Tea from an Empty Cup (Tor, 1998) that may just be thematically appropriate.

[Read more...]

Galen Beckett’s debut novel, a fantasy of manners entitled The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (Spectra, 2008), came as an absolutely delightful surprise. I had heard absolutely nothing about the book or author until a perspicacious friend thrust a copy upon me.

Reader, I was engaged.

Mr. Beckett is a skilled writer, demonstrating unusual control of his voice and prosody for someone at the start of his career. Indeed, the attention to language—and to the structure of his narrative—and to the individuality of the female characters—were such that I initially suspected “Galen Beckett” might be a pseudonym for an established author (it proves to be so) and a woman (and here I was wrong).

[Read more]

In the interests of honest disclosure, I should mention that Holly Black brought the first three chapters of this novel to a workshop I attended in 2007, and I loved it then. However, those chapters were significantly different from the published version, and I had not seen the book between then and when I held a printed copy in my hand.

Also, this is a caper novel, and caper novels are a dear thing to my heart. So I may not be an entirely unbiased reader.

That said, this is my favorite Holly Black book to date. Cassel, the protagonist, is the scion of a venerable family of “curse workers,” people who can manipulate such things as luck, memory, or emotions. But Cassel—a sleepwalker—has no supernatural abilities, just the knowledge that as a much younger child he murdered his best friend in a fugue state, and his family covered it up to protect him.

[Spoilers want to change your mind.]

If Dragon Keeper, the first installment of Hobb’s new Rain Wilds Chronicles series, was long-winded for what it accomplished, the second volume corrects that fault. Often, Book Twos are bridges, but in this case felt as if Book Two was where the story actually kicked into gear, and what had been past was merely prologue. Here, at last, is significant character development. Here is exploration of the world, and progress towards a goal beyond merely identifying it. And here are some developments in the central mysteries of the world.

Most of Dragon Keeper was devoted to establishing protagonists and villains and getting the quest fantasy show on the road, but Dragon Haven opens with the primary conflicts firmly in place and the characters struggling to run alongside the plot long enough to grab hold and swing aboard. This makes for much better momentum and a more interesting narrative, overall.

Thematically, this book also exhibits more unification and arc. At the core of this book are a series of romances and potential romances. There’s someone for everyone, apparently, including the carrier-pigeon keepers whose scribbled messages to one another remain one of the more enchanting aspects of the work. As characters work toward adulthood, they also pair off—or fail to pair off—in fairly predictable manners. And they finally—finally!—begin talking to one another.

[Spoilers are really rather more vague and flattering generalities]

It is a truth (nearly) universally acknowledged (by authors) that second novels are harder than first novels. Often, they’re the first book that a writer has to create under deadline pressure, and the additional pressure of public expectation—which can be both ego-crushing and ego-inflating, sometimes simultaneously, and is certainly distracting as all get out.

I remain impressed that anyone can turn in a book under those circumstances. It’s a true trial by fire, and what’s even more amazing is that sometimes people turn in good second novels.

Margaret Ronald’s Wild Hunt is a good second novel.

I don’t think it’s quite as good as the first one—I admit that I lost the plot in one spot, and there’s a thrashy bit towards the end of the first act—but in general, it’s enjoyable, increases the depth of characterization and worldbuilding, and maintains the reader’s appreciation of Ronald’s masterful grasp of folklore. It doesn’t have quite the great sense of place that Spiral Hunt does—Boston is one of my local cities, along with New York, and Spiral Hunt felt like a day trip—but some local landmarks are given a great presence, which makes up for a lot.

[spoilers wanna be your dog]