Typical middle-volume holding-pattern problems in that this entire book is a gigantic set-up for a doozy of a finale. We hope. It doesn't add much to Typical middle-volume holding-pattern problems in that this entire book is a gigantic set-up for a doozy of a finale. We hope. It doesn't add much to what we already know, but simply moves the various pieces around the Human Sphere chessboard. Still, probably a textbook-perfect example of a well-developed, plotted, and characterised trilogy. Blistering pace, jaw-dropping revelations (pun intended), nuanced characters, taut and often lyrical writing, fantastic attention to detail and the smaller moments. Oh, and acid-, blood-, vomit- and semen-drenched. For what is a good old horror without romance? The Expanse, please take note.
Merged review:
Typical middle-volume holding-pattern problems in that this entire book is a gigantic set-up for a doozy of a finale. We hope. It doesn't add much to what we already know, but simply moves the various pieces around the Human Sphere chessboard. Still, probably a textbook-perfect example of a well-developed, plotted, and characterised trilogy. Blistering pace, jaw-dropping revelations (pun intended), nuanced characters, taut and often lyrical writing, fantastic attention to detail and the smaller moments. Oh, and acid-, blood-, vomit- and semen-drenched. For what is a good old horror without romance? The Expanse, please take note....more
The concluding (is it?) volume in Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy begins rather shakily. While book one was fresh at the time, the seams are now all The concluding (is it?) volume in Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy begins rather shakily. While book one was fresh at the time, the seams are now all too apparent: Grossman’s take on ‘modernising’ grand old fantasy is to have a bunch of modern snarky teens who drink, swear, have sex and generally behave badly.
Behind it all sits the wise-ass author, inserting inappropriate remarks and comments about just how ridiculous all this magic crap really is. While expecting us to believe and shed a quiet tear at the sheer wonder of it all. Nudge, wink.
I did not have high hopes for book three, after the tepid second volume, and especially as the story picks up with Quentin back where it all began, in Brakebills. Was Grossman simply going to recycle the whole story again, from the perspective of an older and wiser Quentin?
Yes and no. Bizarrely, book three quickly turns into a madcap heist caper, with Quentin, Plum and a few other misfits recruited by a talking blackbird to retrieve a missing case that once belonged to Rupert Chatwin. The contents of said case are unknown, while it is protected by an unbreakable spell. Thus a regular McGuffin, as in an ordinary SF novel. Only this one has flying furniture in it.
Grossman switches back to Brakebills to slowly reveal the back story of Quentin and Plum as teacher and pupil. We also get a window into events in Fillory, where the ram god (don’t ask) Ember warns Eliot about an impending last war that forespells apocalyptic doom for our beloved Narnia clone, Fillory. So a Magical Object and a Magical Prophecy, and we are all ready to join the Tolkienesque dots.
Note to author: this is one instance where I as reader would have appreciated a brief summary of What Has Gone Before, as it has been quite a while since I read book two, let alone book one.
The unexpected reappearance of a feral, demonised Alice starts off the last third of the novel with a bang (literally). From this point on, Grossman tightens his hold on the reader’s emotions, and begins a very satisfying and resonant arc that brings Quentin’s story full circle. And it really has been Quentin’s story all along, we realise in the end.
The Magician’s Land is really nothing special until that magical point where Grossman lets his imagination and his love for these characters fuse to create something much larger than the sum of its parts.
This is really a great love song to the wonder and innocence of all children who fall through the magic pages of a book, be it Middle Earth or Bas Lag or Barsoom ... and how powerful a force that love and wonder can be in shaping the adults we become.
Merged review:
The concluding (is it?) volume in Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy begins rather shakily. While book one was fresh at the time, the seams are now all too apparent: Grossman’s take on ‘modernising’ grand old fantasy is to have a bunch of modern snarky teens who drink, swear, have sex and generally behave badly.
Behind it all sits the wise-ass author, inserting inappropriate remarks and comments about just how ridiculous all this magic crap really is. While expecting us to believe and shed a quiet tear at the sheer wonder of it all. Nudge, wink.
I did not have high hopes for book three, after the tepid second volume, and especially as the story picks up with Quentin back where it all began, in Brakebills. Was Grossman simply going to recycle the whole story again, from the perspective of an older and wiser Quentin?
Yes and no. Bizarrely, book three quickly turns into a madcap heist caper, with Quentin, Plum and a few other misfits recruited by a talking blackbird to retrieve a missing case that once belonged to Rupert Chatwin. The contents of said case are unknown, while it is protected by an unbreakable spell. Thus a regular McGuffin, as in an ordinary SF novel. Only this one has flying furniture in it.
Grossman switches back to Brakebills to slowly reveal the back story of Quentin and Plum as teacher and pupil. We also get a window into events in Fillory, where the ram god (don’t ask) Ember warns Eliot about an impending last war that forespells apocalyptic doom for our beloved Narnia clone, Fillory. So a Magical Object and a Magical Prophecy, and we are all ready to join the Tolkienesque dots.
Note to author: this is one instance where I as reader would have appreciated a brief summary of What Has Gone Before, as it has been quite a while since I read book two, let alone book one.
The unexpected reappearance of a feral, demonised Alice starts off the last third of the novel with a bang (literally). From this point on, Grossman tightens his hold on the reader’s emotions, and begins a very satisfying and resonant arc that brings Quentin’s story full circle. And it really has been Quentin’s story all along, we realise in the end.
The Magician’s Land is really nothing special until that magical point where Grossman lets his imagination and his love for these characters fuse to create something much larger than the sum of its parts.
This is really a great love song to the wonder and innocence of all children who fall through the magic pages of a book, be it Middle Earth or Bas Lag or Barsoom ... and how powerful a force that love and wonder can be in shaping the adults we become....more
Nice retro piece of SF Space Race nostalgia. The description of getting into, and out of, a Ye Olde spacesuit is surprisingly nerve-wracking. So much Nice retro piece of SF Space Race nostalgia. The description of getting into, and out of, a Ye Olde spacesuit is surprisingly nerve-wracking. So much for the Star Trek onesies.
Merged review:
Nice retro piece of SF Space Race nostalgia. The description of getting into, and out of, a Ye Olde spacesuit is surprisingly nerve-wracking. So much for the Star Trek onesies....more
Wow, another stellar tor.com novella by the author of Autonomous. Subtle, character-driven world-building in a brief tale that immerses you in its strWow, another stellar tor.com novella by the author of Autonomous. Subtle, character-driven world-building in a brief tale that immerses you in its strangeness and sexiness. Wonderful.
Merged review:
Wow, another stellar tor.com novella by the author of Autonomous. Subtle, character-driven world-building in a brief tale that immerses you in its strangeness and sexiness. Wonderful....more
If you like short-form genre fiction, tor.com now has a fantastic option whereupon you can subscribe and receive a bimonthly ebook containing everythiIf you like short-form genre fiction, tor.com now has a fantastic option whereupon you can subscribe and receive a bimonthly ebook containing everything published on its website for that period. The website has quickly established itself as a leading publisher of genre fiction that pushes boundaries, and which also gives up-and-coming writers a fantastic platform to reach a wider audience. I looked for this compilation on Goodreads, but I see that all of the tor.com novellas are listed as standalone titles. Ah well, at least that is going to boost my reading target … I love the fact that SF/fantasy still actively promotes short-form fiction, to the extent that if you want a good barometer of the state of these genres, you just have to read Lightspeed, Asimov’s, and tor.com, among others. ‘The Book of El’ by John Chu continues in the vein of excellence that has distinguished the tor.com line-up for so long: delicate, bittersweet, with just a hint of otherworldliness, and such a deft grasp of those quotidian details that make characters pop off the page.
Merged review:
If you like short-form genre fiction, tor.com now has a fantastic option whereupon you can subscribe and receive a bimonthly ebook containing everything published on its website for that period. The website has quickly established itself as a leading publisher of genre fiction that pushes boundaries, and which also gives up-and-coming writers a fantastic platform to reach a wider audience. I looked for this compilation on Goodreads, but I see that all of the tor.com novellas are listed as standalone titles. Ah well, at least that is going to boost my reading target … I love the fact that SF/fantasy still actively promotes short-form fiction, to the extent that if you want a good barometer of the state of these genres, you just have to read Lightspeed, Asimov’s, and tor.com, among others. ‘The Book of El’ by John Chu continues in the vein of excellence that has distinguished the tor.com line-up for so long: delicate, bittersweet, with just a hint of otherworldliness, and such a deft grasp of those quotidian details that make characters pop off the page....more
This is the first Wilde Stories collection I have read, sub-titled ‘The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction’. There are only two ‘kind of’ SF stories This is the first Wilde Stories collection I have read, sub-titled ‘The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction’. There are only two ‘kind of’ SF stories here, both are about AI, with the bulk being fantasy and/or horror. Same have more gay content than others. No spaceships, astronauts or even aliens. Unless you count the weird bloke on the block as an alien.
Editor Steve Berman definitely needs to include a brief boilerplate explanation in each year’s edition to remind regular readers, and inform new ones like me, of the connection between Oscar Wilde and speculative fiction – which SF readers will know was Robert Heinlein’s preferred term for science fiction.
Speculative fiction here obviously runs the gamut of the fantastic. While I enjoyed this collection, I would have liked to have read more explicitly SF stories (gay ‘hard’ SF!), as there is already an abundance of gay fantasy and horror.
Having said that, this is a wonderful collection, with uniformly excellent writing and varied content. I love collections like this, as they are often a treasure trove of new writers.
The Arab’s Prayer by Alex Jeffers: Evocative account of the daily minutiae of a cross-cultural relationship between Yaffe (Jewish) and Mus’ad (Muslim) in a future Jerusalem still wracked with dissent and religious turmoil. An impressive amount of detail layers this story, making for an intense, lived-in reading experience.
Fairy Tale by Justin Torres: Deliciously grimy and shockingly sexy little fairy story by the author of ‘We, The Animals’.
Thou Earth, Thou by K.M. Ferebee: Gay couple Dunbar and Mason move to the countryside, where Dunbar discovers his green thumbs. This is a slow-building and intense horror story that packs a shocking ending.
Hoffmann, Godzilla and Me by Richard Bowes: Elegiac tale about a gay writer confronting his own mortality, wrapped up in considerations of Japanese horror movies, New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and Hoffmann’s Copelia, about a man who falls in love with a doll (or a robot, in this SF version).
Color Zap! by Sam Sommer: Disappointingly didactic, by-the-numbers story about a planetary colony founded by gay people where genetic manipulation occasionally burps out a child with coloured hair, leading to ridicule and discrimination. Spencer, he of the periwinkle locks, soon finds he is not alone, and joins a revolutionary movement called the Community of Recessives whose acts of civil disobedience are called ‘color zaps’.
All Smiles by Steve Berman: From the frying pan into the fire ... Saul escapes from a youth detention / rehabilitation centre and hitches a ride with an enigmatic pair of teenagers, who turn out to be vampires on the prowl. This is far more a horror story, with no discernible SF element and borderline gay content.
The Peacock by Ted Infinity and Nabil Hijazi: This delightful story about an AI’s romantic awakening ticks all the boxes of SF and gay (and then some). Wonderfully evocative and laugh-out-loud funny. Definitely one of the strongest stories in the anthology.
Ashes in the Water by Joel Lane and Mat Joiner: Moody, borderline fantasy piece. Josh visits the houseboat of his friend Anthony, after his partner Warren passes away, and discovers that the houseboat is either a doorway to a darker realm, or a funeral barge carrying him away from normality.
A Razor in an Apple by Kristopher Reisz: Beautiful story about loss and the power of memory. No overt SF elements in this fantasy story, which borders on horror. Philip visits a strange apothecary shop where it is rumoured one can buy memories … at a price.
The Cloud Dragon Ate Red Balloons by Tom Cardamone: Like the Justin Torres story, this one is only a handful of pages ... but, wow, how the writing sizzles. I suppose this wishful fantasy is about the power of belief and desire. Beguiling and whimsical.
Filling up the Void by Richard E. Gropp: One of the few hard SF stories in this anthology, about AI and full body modification ... with the irony being that the gay porn industry pioneers both technologies (reminiscent of The Peacock).
The House by the Park by Lee Thomas: The most sexually explicit story in this anthology, the most overt horror story ... and also the most romantic. Denis and Fred, two older men who survive difficult relationships, find solace and compatibility in each other. Unbeknown to them, a man in the house by the park has committed suicide and cursed the world in the process, opening the gates to hell. Intense and unsettling.
Pinion by Stellan Thorne: Beautiful story about a hard-bitten cop who has to arrest an angel for a crime, and is haunted by the experience for his entire life.
We Do Not Come in Peace by Christopher Barzak: Infatuation and the passion of youth collide in a mysterious town on the Border, where revolution simmers.
The Duke of Riverside by Ellen Kushner: Standard sword-and-sorcery fare, with only a token nod to gay content.
Merged review:
This is the first Wilde Stories collection I have read, sub-titled ‘The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction’. There are only two ‘kind of’ SF stories here, both are about AI, with the bulk being fantasy and/or horror. Same have more gay content than others. No spaceships, astronauts or even aliens. Unless you count the weird bloke on the block as an alien.
Editor Steve Berman definitely needs to include a brief boilerplate explanation in each year’s edition to remind regular readers, and inform new ones like me, of the connection between Oscar Wilde and speculative fiction – which SF readers will know was Robert Heinlein’s preferred term for science fiction.
Speculative fiction here obviously runs the gamut of the fantastic. While I enjoyed this collection, I would have liked to have read more explicitly SF stories (gay ‘hard’ SF!), as there is already an abundance of gay fantasy and horror.
Having said that, this is a wonderful collection, with uniformly excellent writing and varied content. I love collections like this, as they are often a treasure trove of new writers.
The Arab’s Prayer by Alex Jeffers: Evocative account of the daily minutiae of a cross-cultural relationship between Yaffe (Jewish) and Mus’ad (Muslim) in a future Jerusalem still wracked with dissent and religious turmoil. An impressive amount of detail layers this story, making for an intense, lived-in reading experience.
Fairy Tale by Justin Torres: Deliciously grimy and shockingly sexy little fairy story by the author of ‘We, The Animals’.
Thou Earth, Thou by K.M. Ferebee: Gay couple Dunbar and Mason move to the countryside, where Dunbar discovers his green thumbs. This is a slow-building and intense horror story that packs a shocking ending.
Hoffmann, Godzilla and Me by Richard Bowes: Elegiac tale about a gay writer confronting his own mortality, wrapped up in considerations of Japanese horror movies, New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and Hoffmann’s Copelia, about a man who falls in love with a doll (or a robot, in this SF version).
Color Zap! by Sam Sommer: Disappointingly didactic, by-the-numbers story about a planetary colony founded by gay people where genetic manipulation occasionally burps out a child with coloured hair, leading to ridicule and discrimination. Spencer, he of the periwinkle locks, soon finds he is not alone, and joins a revolutionary movement called the Community of Recessives whose acts of civil disobedience are called ‘color zaps’.
All Smiles by Steve Berman: From the frying pan into the fire ... Saul escapes from a youth detention / rehabilitation centre and hitches a ride with an enigmatic pair of teenagers, who turn out to be vampires on the prowl. This is far more a horror story, with no discernible SF element and borderline gay content.
The Peacock by Ted Infinity and Nabil Hijazi: This delightful story about an AI’s romantic awakening ticks all the boxes of SF and gay (and then some). Wonderfully evocative and laugh-out-loud funny. Definitely one of the strongest stories in the anthology.
Ashes in the Water by Joel Lane and Mat Joiner: Moody, borderline fantasy piece. Josh visits the houseboat of his friend Anthony, after his partner Warren passes away, and discovers that the houseboat is either a doorway to a darker realm, or a funeral barge carrying him away from normality.
A Razor in an Apple by Kristopher Reisz: Beautiful story about loss and the power of memory. No overt SF elements in this fantasy story, which borders on horror. Philip visits a strange apothecary shop where it is rumoured one can buy memories … at a price.
The Cloud Dragon Ate Red Balloons by Tom Cardamone: Like the Justin Torres story, this one is only a handful of pages ... but, wow, how the writing sizzles. I suppose this wishful fantasy is about the power of belief and desire. Beguiling and whimsical.
Filling up the Void by Richard E. Gropp: One of the few hard SF stories in this anthology, about AI and full body modification ... with the irony being that the gay porn industry pioneers both technologies (reminiscent of The Peacock).
The House by the Park by Lee Thomas: The most sexually explicit story in this anthology, the most overt horror story ... and also the most romantic. Denis and Fred, two older men who survive difficult relationships, find solace and compatibility in each other. Unbeknown to them, a man in the house by the park has committed suicide and cursed the world in the process, opening the gates to hell. Intense and unsettling.
Pinion by Stellan Thorne: Beautiful story about a hard-bitten cop who has to arrest an angel for a crime, and is haunted by the experience for his entire life.
We Do Not Come in Peace by Christopher Barzak: Infatuation and the passion of youth collide in a mysterious town on the Border, where revolution simmers.
The Duke of Riverside by Ellen Kushner: Standard sword-and-sorcery fare, with only a token nod to gay content....more
The second story in the tor.com Jan-Feb ebook collection. It takes a particular kind of chutzpah for a writer to turn a common-day occurrence like somThe second story in the tor.com Jan-Feb ebook collection. It takes a particular kind of chutzpah for a writer to turn a common-day occurrence like someone dying from cancer into the subject matter of a speculative piece.
There is perhaps nothing less speculative than a lingering death from an aggressive form of cancer. A friend of mine’s mother has Stage 4 cancer, so when I began reading this, I almost stopped, as it was too close to home.
But then I thought: what is the purpose of fiction if not to take the ephemeral thread of both life and death, and to weave it into the magic of Story, so that we may live forever in each other’s thoughts and memories?
At first glance, the idea of an alien host that metastasises with its human host, in order to create a symbiont that guarantees extended life for both, appears appallingly horrific. Bear applies surgical precision to this idea to pick out the repercussions and consequences, some obvious, others banal, others shattering in their transgressive redefinition of love and grief, in a complex story about the nature of relationships.
Another hugely impressive entry in the tor.com fiction line-up, which seems to raise the bar with everything it publishes.
Merged review:
The second story in the tor.com Jan-Feb ebook collection. It takes a particular kind of chutzpah for a writer to turn a common-day occurrence like someone dying from cancer into the subject matter of a speculative piece.
There is perhaps nothing less speculative than a lingering death from an aggressive form of cancer. A friend of mine’s mother has Stage 4 cancer, so when I began reading this, I almost stopped, as it was too close to home.
But then I thought: what is the purpose of fiction if not to take the ephemeral thread of both life and death, and to weave it into the magic of Story, so that we may live forever in each other’s thoughts and memories?
At first glance, the idea of an alien host that metastasises with its human host, in order to create a symbiont that guarantees extended life for both, appears appallingly horrific. Bear applies surgical precision to this idea to pick out the repercussions and consequences, some obvious, others banal, others shattering in their transgressive redefinition of love and grief, in a complex story about the nature of relationships.
Another hugely impressive entry in the tor.com fiction line-up, which seems to raise the bar with everything it publishes....more
Unusually for a trilogy – and especially given how strong the middle volume was – the third instalment is, disappointingly, the weakest. This is not tUnusually for a trilogy – and especially given how strong the middle volume was – the third instalment is, disappointingly, the weakest. This is not to say it is not a solid enough conclusion to the Rage War. Lebbon ties up all the loose ends with pretty ribbons and bows, a lot of them made from the intestines and various organs and fluids of weird creatures who die horribly in gloriously-orchestrated solar-system-wide chaos and carnage. However, the ending so open-endedly screams ‘next’ at the reader that true closure is impossible. And, by the way, WTF happened to the Faze? Coming to think of it, WTF is the Faze? And will we ever get to see the Yautja homeworld?
Merged review:
Unusually for a trilogy – and especially given how strong the middle volume was – the third instalment is, disappointingly, the weakest. This is not to say it is not a solid enough conclusion to the Rage War. Lebbon ties up all the loose ends with pretty ribbons and bows, a lot of them made from the intestines and various organs and fluids of weird creatures who die horribly in gloriously-orchestrated solar-system-wide chaos and carnage. However, the ending so open-endedly screams ‘next’ at the reader that true closure is impossible. And, by the way, WTF happened to the Faze? Coming to think of it, WTF is the Faze? And will we ever get to see the Yautja homeworld?...more
What a wonderful surprise this book turned out to be. I have never read Steven Erikson before, and was blissfully unaware of his credentials in the HiWhat a wonderful surprise this book turned out to be. I have never read Steven Erikson before, and was blissfully unaware of his credentials in the High Fantasy genre (the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which I might actually give a whirl if Erikson’s world-building is as good as it is here).
This book reminded me immediately of Longer by Michael Blumlein, in that it represents certain facets about SF that I love, and which repel other readers. Both of these are novels of ideas, and in Erikson’s case, it is also a novel of talking heads.
There really is no way around this one. Yes, writing teachers always say ‘show, don’t tell’, and there is a remarkable array of secondary characters in Erikson’s book that viscerally illustrate the impact of the First Contact event on the planet and its already highly-fractured society.
A lot of these characters are evoked wonderfully, with just the right quirky detail to make them jump from the page. Others are painted with broader strokes, such as the US and Russian presidents, who are clearly based on their real-life counterparts (I think this book was published originally last year). Erikson has a ball here, and lays into these titular political figures with a real vengeance.
His US president, in particular, is foul-mouthed and dim-witted, and inadvertently quite funny. The venture capitalists and other representatives of the ruling world order do not fair well either. It is clear that Erikson is (kind of) paying homage to the more political-type SF of Ken McLeod and Iain M. Banks.
The latter is referenced quite often (the first instance is quite a heart-breaking reference to Banksie’s untimely death from cancer). His Culture series was based on the economic concept of post-scarcity, which is the idea that goods can be produced in abundance with minimal human labour required, which means they become available to all and sundry either very cheaply or even freely.
Back to the talking heads. In the first few pages, an infamous Canadian SF writer (who is also a highly-opinionated vlogger, and famously staged a slanging match with Margaret Atwood at a convention) is abducted by aliens while walking down the main street of town. Literally, a UFO appears, and a beam of white light zaps her into the beyond, much to the consternation of her doctor husband.
She spends the bulk of this nearly 500-page book in a little white room in space, debating the human condition with an omniscient AI, and whether or not she will agree to be the aliens’ spokesperson and address the planet about what is termed the Intervention. The latter has five stages, and so the book itself has five parts.
While this sounds like the worst kind of McGuffin on which to base a book of this size, Samantha August is such a compelling character that her verbal jousts with the AI are truly fascinating and quite on the money. (This is SF, after all, a genre often unafraid to tackle contemporary socio-political issues with the clarity and incisiveness they deserve, particularly given the obfuscation and downright mendacity of both politics and big business).
Indeed, what I loved about the book is that it is also a love letter to the SF genre itself, not to mention bad Hollywood movies about first contact. These always seem to equate this momentous event with alien invasion. Hence they are often set in the US, depicted as the only nation with the necessary backbone and military might to kick alien ass.
Erikson has great fun with the idea that SF writers are the heroes of the moment, feted by the high and mighty to give their advice on the aliens’ inscrutable tactics. Robert J. Sawyer appears as himself, giving politicians hell. The much-loved Prime Directive from Star Trek is also grilled.
(Star Trek makes quite a critical appearance towards the end in a way that is genuinely laugh-out loud funny). Savvy genre readers will spot a lot of additional references and nods to famous works and people.
I enjoyed this book so much that I was even prepared to forgive the cliffhanger ending, with Erikson clearly relishing stopping his story literally in the middle of the action (yes, there is action towards the end, when the talking is finally done).
Genre fans seem to think that only SF writers can write SF. When literary writers like Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro or Margaret Atwood dabble in SF or fantasy, it is somehow seen to be non-genre (with the mainstream writers often dissing the genres anyway, to much hand-wringing from the fans).
Erikson clearly comes into the SF fold as an outsider, as he is mainly seen as a fantasy writer. Then again, there are lots of examples of SF writers turning to fantasy – Richard K. Morgan and Kameron Hurley spring to mind.
Genre fans are surprisingly parochial. Given such distressing recent events as the Sad Puppies right-wing anti-diversity voting campaign at the Hugos, not to mention the toxic fandom impact on The Last Jedi, they can also be quite narrow-minded.
It takes a great writer like Erikson to jump into the SF sandbox with wild abandon, and produce something so wonderful and unexpected that it reminds us, both forcefully and gratefully, of the true saving grace of genre.
Merged review:
What a wonderful surprise this book turned out to be. I have never read Steven Erikson before, and was blissfully unaware of his credentials in the High Fantasy genre (the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which I might actually give a whirl if Erikson’s world-building is as good as it is here).
This book reminded me immediately of Longer by Michael Blumlein, in that it represents certain facets about SF that I love, and which repel other readers. Both of these are novels of ideas, and in Erikson’s case, it is also a novel of talking heads.
There really is no way around this one. Yes, writing teachers always say ‘show, don’t tell’, and there is a remarkable array of secondary characters in Erikson’s book that viscerally illustrate the impact of the First Contact event on the planet and its already highly-fractured society.
A lot of these characters are evoked wonderfully, with just the right quirky detail to make them jump from the page. Others are painted with broader strokes, such as the US and Russian presidents, who are clearly based on their real-life counterparts (I think this book was published originally last year). Erikson has a ball here, and lays into these titular political figures with a real vengeance.
His US president, in particular, is foul-mouthed and dim-witted, and inadvertently quite funny. The venture capitalists and other representatives of the ruling world order do not fair well either. It is clear that Erikson is (kind of) paying homage to the more political-type SF of Ken McLeod and Iain M. Banks.
The latter is referenced quite often (the first instance is quite a heart-breaking reference to Banksie’s untimely death from cancer). His Culture series was based on the economic concept of post-scarcity, which is the idea that goods can be produced in abundance with minimal human labour required, which means they become available to all and sundry either very cheaply or even freely.
Back to the talking heads. In the first few pages, an infamous Canadian SF writer (who is also a highly-opinionated vlogger, and famously staged a slanging match with Margaret Atwood at a convention) is abducted by aliens while walking down the main street of town. Literally, a UFO appears, and a beam of white light zaps her into the beyond, much to the consternation of her doctor husband.
She spends the bulk of this nearly 500-page book in a little white room in space, debating the human condition with an omniscient AI, and whether or not she will agree to be the aliens’ spokesperson and address the planet about what is termed the Intervention. The latter has five stages, and so the book itself has five parts.
While this sounds like the worst kind of McGuffin on which to base a book of this size, Samantha August is such a compelling character that her verbal jousts with the AI are truly fascinating and quite on the money. (This is SF, after all, a genre often unafraid to tackle contemporary socio-political issues with the clarity and incisiveness they deserve, particularly given the obfuscation and downright mendacity of both politics and big business).
Indeed, what I loved about the book is that it is also a love letter to the SF genre itself, not to mention bad Hollywood movies about first contact. These always seem to equate this momentous event with alien invasion. Hence they are often set in the US, depicted as the only nation with the necessary backbone and military might to kick alien ass.
Erikson has great fun with the idea that SF writers are the heroes of the moment, feted by the high and mighty to give their advice on the aliens’ inscrutable tactics. Robert J. Sawyer appears as himself, giving politicians hell. The much-loved Prime Directive from Star Trek is also grilled.
(Star Trek makes quite a critical appearance towards the end in a way that is genuinely laugh-out loud funny). Savvy genre readers will spot a lot of additional references and nods to famous works and people.
I enjoyed this book so much that I was even prepared to forgive the cliffhanger ending, with Erikson clearly relishing stopping his story literally in the middle of the action (yes, there is action towards the end, when the talking is finally done).
Genre fans seem to think that only SF writers can write SF. When literary writers like Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro or Margaret Atwood dabble in SF or fantasy, it is somehow seen to be non-genre (with the mainstream writers often dissing the genres anyway, to much hand-wringing from the fans).
Erikson clearly comes into the SF fold as an outsider, as he is mainly seen as a fantasy writer. Then again, there are lots of examples of SF writers turning to fantasy – Richard K. Morgan and Kameron Hurley spring to mind.
Genre fans are surprisingly parochial. Given such distressing recent events as the Sad Puppies right-wing anti-diversity voting campaign at the Hugos, not to mention the toxic fandom impact on The Last Jedi, they can also be quite narrow-minded.
It takes a great writer like Erikson to jump into the SF sandbox with wild abandon, and produce something so wonderful and unexpected that it reminds us, both forcefully and gratefully, of the true saving grace of genre....more
'Enough time at the Majestic Oriental Circus opens the mind to all kinds of possibilities.' Interesting idea: a jinn in a lamp in love with its owner,'Enough time at the Majestic Oriental Circus opens the mind to all kinds of possibilities.' Interesting idea: a jinn in a lamp in love with its owner, but sidetracked by a subplot of letting a temple girl join the circus, with (predictably) unforeseen consequences.
Merged review:
'Enough time at the Majestic Oriental Circus opens the mind to all kinds of possibilities.' Interesting idea: a jinn in a lamp in love with its owner, but sidetracked by a subplot of letting a temple girl join the circus, with (predictably) unforeseen consequences....more
Welcome update of the 2009 Routledge Companion, which did not even have a chapter on afrofuturism. Interestingly, the 2024 edition starts with ‘North Welcome update of the 2009 Routledge Companion, which did not even have a chapter on afrofuturism. Interestingly, the 2024 edition starts with ‘North African, Middle Eastern, Arabic and diasporic science fiction’ by Sinéad Murphy, as opposed to ‘The Copernican revolution’ by Adam Roberts. This indicates the growing importance of indigenous futurisms. The editors write in their Introduction:
We all live in science fiction times. The genre is everywhere, even as it bleeds into all other kinds of cultural production. At the same time, the border between reality and sf grows increasingly porous, a tenuous proposition at best.
It is hard to believe it, but way back in 2009, the world was grappling with social media. I did not even know this, but at the time the Routledge Companion went online to enable easy updating and expansion.
Its hyperlinks make for a pleasurable dérive through the genre, but it remains a little atomised and, inevitably, in a constant race to keep up. The fixed parameters of a physical book exacerbate these problems even as they relieve its editors of much of that burden.
The significance, and prescience, of the original Routledge Companion can be gauged by the editors’ 2009 sentiment that sf scholarship has embraced “the genre as a global phenomenon, not merely in terms of the consumption of texts and practices produced in or by the First World, but also in its ability to express the experience of modernity among peoples excluded from the economic and geopolitical core.”
From the 2024 Introduction:
Indigenous sf and sf from the Global South have been major success stories in the 15 years since we wrote those words, even if far too little of it is available in translation and the examples written in English tend to be published only by small presses. Much of this sf challenges our ideas about the nature and shape of the field, rewiring cyberpunk, planetary romance, space opera, utopia, dystopia, the technothriller and so on, or doing its own beautiful, exciting and exhilarating thing.
Unsurprisingly, the editors remain committed to being “unable and unwilling” to offer a definition of sf. Their argument is that: “Any attempts at definition have more to do with various commentators establishing their relationships to others within the conversation than with a serious attempt to delimit a mode.”
Fair enough, but pity the poor reader trying to keep up with literary scholarship and popular culture, especially when Gary K. Wolfe states baldly that American SF no longer exists. “But nonetheless, there are works that look like sf, swim like sf and quack like sf – and it is helpful to consider them in the company of whatever we might just about agree upon as being sf.”
It is sobering to consider that, since the 2009 Routledge Companion, there has been a new generation of critics and readers (while those of us who are, er, older are grappling with the changes in approach and consumerism.) One comment I do agree with – and it is a contentious debate, especially in the context of afrofuturism – is that the genre has never been interested in prediction or prognostication:
...we are not convinced that the genre has ever had much to say seriously about the future. It has always, via estrangement, allegory, metaphor or whatever, been more about the situation in which its creators have found themselves themselves in – environmental geopolitics, personal identity, new technologies, scientific developments, and so on.
Apparently, the revised edition was nearly derailed by Covid-19 – Adam Roberts stepped down as an editor – but the work trundled along. Readers, scholars, and the simply curious can only be deeply thankful for this. The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction remains an indispensable resource and fascinating barometer of global sf scholarship and fandom. ...more
Mashigo’s ‘Afrofuturism: Ayashis’ Amateki’ (2018) is one of the most important position statements on the 1994 Mark Dery definition after Okorafor’s ‘Mashigo’s ‘Afrofuturism: Ayashis’ Amateki’ (2018) is one of the most important position statements on the 1994 Mark Dery definition after Okorafor’s ‘Africanfuturism Defined’ (2019). Despite the ‘future’ being implicit in the name, I disagree with Mashigo that afrofuturism has to contain futuristic elements. The weakest stories here are the ones that, reluctantly, attempt a space opera vibe. The best are the ones that slip effortlessly between the cracks of any genre definition. As Samuel R. Delany – who was interviewed by Dery for his original 1994 article ‘Black to the Future’ – states in ‘The Mirror of Afrofuturism’ (2020): “Unless we set up our critical mirrors very carefully, arguably there is no such thing as Afrofuturism.”...more
I have no idea how to rate this because I am still unsure as to what the fuck I just read. It’s the book with the kind of audacity and sheer sense of I have no idea how to rate this because I am still unsure as to what the fuck I just read. It’s the book with the kind of audacity and sheer sense of bonkers that you just plunge forward into the reading experience, hoping to submerge … You don’t quite, with this one. I will definitely have to reread it and give it much more thought. The line near the end, ‘the time traveller had been sentenced to death’, reminds me of ‘Behold the Man’ by Michael Moorcock. With lots more AI. And saliva. ...more
Mildly amusing continuation of the Sin du Jour saga ties in directly with Envy of Angels, or trots out the same tired tropes for a stale repeat, depenMildly amusing continuation of the Sin du Jour saga ties in directly with Envy of Angels, or trots out the same tired tropes for a stale repeat, depending how generous you want to be. This series about a goumet kitchen catering for supernatural clientele desperately needs new ingredients in order to become fresh again.
Merged review:
Mildly amusing continuation of the Sin du Jour saga ties in directly with Envy of Angels, or trots out the same tired tropes for a stale repeat, depending how generous you want to be. This series about a goumet kitchen catering for supernatural clientele desperately needs new ingredients in order to become fresh again....more
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