Alastair Reynolds - Deep Navigation

Though I haven't had the opportunity to discuss his work as often as I'd like, I've never made a secret of my absolute love for Alastair Reynolds. As such, I rather unsurprisingly jumped at the chance to read this collection of fifteen of his stories (dating from all through his career, including his very first published piece) when it was rescued from its horrific price tag on the used market by a second edition.

One of the things that most struck me about Alastair Reynolds' work, reading him for the first time since Terminal World in early 2010, and after having spent much of that interim immersing myself in the Weird Fiction of Thomas Ligotti and others, is Reynolds' own connection with the weird. Of course, I'm hardly the first to raise such a connection. Reynolds himself discusses it in the now-famous initial internet discussion of the New Weird, archived here. He writes that The New Space Opera, as he calls it, can't ever be as weird as the NW [New Weird] unless it becomes the NW itself. This is because the New Space Opera will always exclude anything it can't rationalise.

Now, I'm always a bit hesitant to disagree with a great man like Reynolds, especially when it's about his own work, but I don't think that's accurate. It's true that The New Space Opera can never be as aesthetically or superficially weird, yeah. It can't ever directly visit hell. But, that's not to say that it can't be just as intellectually and thematically weird as anything written by China Miéville, Lovecraft, or any other; it just approaches it from the opposite direction. Instead of birthing nigh unimaginable strangeness through the fantastic, as is the standard approach, what Reynolds does (to tremendous effect, I might add) is follow the rational to its logical conclusion, or farthest extrapolation, and then show us the thousand fold variations and seeming impossibilities, the things that are simply too big or strange for us to ever understand. For an illustration of this, one need only turn to the ending of Reynolds' Pushing Ice and the sheer awe it inspires, the feeling of (as Lovecraft might put it) cosmic irrelevance it forces on us, the forced expansion of thought and perspective until our own lives and worlds are just a distant, nigh invisible glint in the night, and all of that without necessarily needing to violate rationality.

To turn to the stories in this collection, it's stunning how closely Reynolds' descriptions and writing can at times be to those supreme fantasists and horror writers already mentioned, no matter how opposed their methods of reaching those moments of collapsing reality are. In the Fixation, Reynolds explores the idea of multiple dimensions and a method to exploit that multiplicity. The consequences of this are, in all their vivid and disorienting glory, familiar in style to anyone familiar with tales like Ligotti's Nethescurial or Lovecraft's The Colour out of Space: The door has vanished, leaving only a sagging gap in the wall. The floor is made of stones, unevenly laid. Halfway to her bench the stones blend together not something like concrete, and then a little further the concrete gains the hard red sheen of the flooring she has come to expect. On the desk, her electric light flickers and fades. The laptops shut down with a whine, their screens darkening. The lines of change in the floor creeps closer to the desk, like an advancing tide. From somewhere in the darkness Rana hears the quiet, insistent dripping of water. (p. 65) The same kind of insidious change dominates Byrd Land Six, twisting and destroying the humans caught in its path: Cookie had become ice, literally merging with the landscape. His clothes and exposed flesh were glistening and colourless. He was sleek, lacking detail, barely recognizable. (p. 161)

Not every story, admittedly, is successful at establishing or utilizing these expansions of perspective and reality. The Receivers is an alternative history of a world war where faint music can be heard over the British sonic detection systems. But this never goes anywhere, never coheres into some thematic revelation or some practical event, and the pudgy story – which somehow manages to be genteely tensionless even as bombs fall – takes forever to even get that far. The Sledge-Maker's Daughter spends a fair part of its length showing us a fantasy setting before the main character learns the Science Fiction backdrop of her world and the epic war that's taking place around its edges. But nothing ever comes of it. The tale's opening may've given us some feel for the fantasy world, but the Science Fictional revelation comes entirely through a multi-page infodump utterly lacking in emotional punch, and then the piece ends before the interesting parts of the story can even get started. And then there's the bizarre case of Soirée, a tale whose absolutely superb twist is only spoiled by it being a complete rip off of another Alastair Reynolds story (Beyond the Aquila Rift from Zima Blue, to be precise).

All of that's not to suggest, however, that Reynolds' strengths lie solely in that effect. He's at his best when he not only utilizes the strangeness of the weird but melds it with his other great talent, his skill and penchant for large scale, high stakes plots. The Star Surgeon's Apprentice; Fury; Tiger, Burning; and the aforementioned Byrd Land Six all successfully combine out there and thought provoking ideas with gripping plots and well drawn characters. The Star Surgeon's Apprentice's twists are a tad predictable, but that does little to diminish the tale's strength. Tiger, Burning is one of the collection's strongest pieces, a far future detective tale with a Vingian backdrop and an excellent core. Fury, meanwhile, is a distance- and time-spanning tale that perfectly captures the grandeur and feel of the interstellar empire it depicts. It also contains of the collection's greatest images, that of the emperor morphing and growing with his territory, swelling as each new territory – be it a planet, system or entire glittering star cluster – was swallowed into his realm. (p. 76)

Fury's morality, though, is rather more questionable. The narrator is the emperor's bodyguard, but grows horrified when he learns that, at the empire's beginnings, the emperor killed his brother, and that he, the bodyguard, played a role in that killing. As our narrator says, Every glorious and noble act that [the emperor] had ever committed, every kind and honourable deed, was built upon the foundations of a crime. The empire's very existence hinged upon a single evil act. (p. 100) Understandable indignation and horror, but rather harder to understand when one takes in the early wars of conquest that the narrator fully acknowledges: There might once have been a time when [the emperor's]  expansionist ambitions were driven by something close to lust, but that was tens of thousands of years ago. (p. 77) Just in case you think the difference is one of time, that those wars are too far gone for him to be held accountable for, the narrator helpfully says in relation to this one murder: So what if it happened thirty two thousand years ago? Did that make it less of a crime than if it had happened ten thousand years ago, or last week? (p. 100) So galactic wars of conquest, no doubt killing untold millions, aren't a big deal, but when one guy you know bites it, why, that's "unspeakable"! (ibid) Glad to know.

Not every story in the collection, mind you, is of the same Weird-esque cut. Stroboscopic shows us the future of gaming. It's a story somewhat reminiscent, for not too surprising reasons, of Iain M. Banks' Player of Games, in that a seemingly innocent hobby takes on monumental importance, but here that emphasis is not only internal; we're shown a system covered in an icy, brittle peace, where antagonism's only vent short of war seems to be these barely ruled competitions. Not all of it's supremely plausible, but it is inventive and enjoyable. On the Oodnadatta feels a tale of two hearts, the one lightly comedic, the other a horrifying and even disgusting look at the future, at rights, and at exploitation. The disconnect hurts it, but the latter part's more than strong enough to overcome the former, leaving this a memorable and vivid piece.

Viper is a supremely cynical tale (The designers had recognized that a system not amenable to corruption was of no use to anyone. (p. 263)) that seems to be building up to a twist, even shows the twist as it might go, but then backs away. Still, it's a strong read and a thought provoking one as well. Monkey Suit, the collection's only slice of the Revelation Space universe, alas, doesn't fare so well, a simple tale that only gains impact by alluding to (without in any way furthering) elements of other works in the setting. Finally there's Nunivak Snowflakes, the author's very first story. Though filled with developments and clever parts, the Reynolds of its time lacked the skill and finesse to weld them together, leaving it more interesting (both in ideas and from a biographical perspective) than well done.

Much of what I love about Reynolds' writing can be traced back to its blending of art and science, of emotion and intellect, elements of beauty and the vastness of reality. Though often dealing with dense scientific elements (though, even to a non scientist such as myself, the groundedness of those elements varies wildly), the stories here never got bogged down with explanations or grow overly confusing.  Occasionally, though, Reynolds does go too far in the other direction, evidently determined to explain simple things to the most determinedly dull, inattentive reader, like when he clunks out: I looked like a man, but in fact I was a robot. (p. 80) Adding insult to injury, there, the following two sentences (My meat exterior was only a few centimeters thick. Beneath that living shell lay the hard armor of a sentient machine. (ibid)) not only get across the same facts, but do so with immeasurably more style.

The effects of all this go beyond just the prose, though. Art's a vital part of viewing the world in these stories, a means of understanding and interacting with the world, as exemplified by eighteen 'stanzas' of a much longer epic 'poem' written in commemoration of the collapse of part of the polar region of [a race's] Dyson sphere about 1.2 million years ago, an accident that resulted in the deaths of  ~5.6 X 10^12 sentient beings. (p. 69) More personal horrors, too, are rammed home by similar means, as when the murders of a serial killer are described as the formalized sculpture of living meat. (p. 252) Then there's Fresco, one of the collection's two flash pieces, a quietly but grandly beautiful and haunting tale of slowly-shifting art that charts the rise and fall of civilizations. As the caretaker knows: Art is long […] And life short. (p. 245)

All of Deep Navigation doesn't live up to Alastair Reynolds' best work, though it does have several extremely interesting and well executed pieces. Any fan of the man's work is sure to find much to love here, and much, like his first story, that gives interesting perspective on the rest of his oeuvre. For the newcomer, though, this is best saved until after an exposure to Zima Blue, the Revelation Space series, Terminal World, or one of the man's other masterpieces.

Up and Coming (and Essential?) in January and 2011

The Hammer is K.J. Parker’s newest standalone, and it seems to be filled with all of what’s best in Parker’s prior works (rigorous and detailed worlds with accurate technology, great characters in interesting dynamics, etc). Fantasy Book Critic’s review, the only one that I’ve seen, is quite positive.

I loved The First Law trilogy; the books were snappy, cynical, and vivid. The ending was superb. Best Served Cold wasn’t quite on the same level (it was basically First Law v2), but I’m still quite excited about The Heroes, in part because it seems like a great opportunity for Abercrombie to write what he’s best at in new ways, particularly the focus on a single battle in a short time span. Early reports have been strong. 

FOR 2011

I thought it might prove interesting to post my most anticipated books of the new year and, at the end of the year, see how they fared compared to other releases.

Daniel Abraham - Dragon's Path

R. Scott Bakker - White Luck Warrior

Steven Erikson - The Crippled God
Felix Gilman - ???

Adam LG Nevill - The Ritual
K.J. Parker - The Hammer

Alastair Reynolds - Blue Remembered Earth

Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn: The Alloy of Law

Best Releases of 2010

I've read eighteen books released this year. Of those, four stood out as head and shoulders above the rest.  Each of these books is something I would recommend to any genre fan.

So let's get to some books, shall we?

Review here.

The Halfmade World excelled in just about every category I can think of to judge fiction. The world is immersive, well thought out, and interesting, and the characters that populate it are both larger than life and crippled by flaws. Liv is ineffective and, for much of the novel, incapable of surviving on her own. Creedmore is narcissistic and self pitying. Lowry is an automaton, unwilling to acknowledge that he’s walking right off a cliff. Gilman's created a focused work that feels epic, a fascinating cast of characters, and a gripping plot. I’d compare The Halfmade World to the other releases of the year, but there’s really no need. 2010 has a clear winner, and it’s standing right here.

Review here.

Like The Halfmade World, Terminal World uses a personal struggle to illuminate vast, world changing events. Admittedly, none of Reynolds’ characters here have the sheer power of Gilman’s in the above book. But Reynolds has never been a character writer, even if his characters have grown immeasurably. I read Reynolds books to be wowed by concepts and shifts in scale, to be awed by creations I could never have conceived of. The ideas in Terminal World will blow your mind. The Spire’s varying levels of technology allow clear demarcations within the text, and Reynolds gets to play in a half dozen different playgrounds. Every level is exquisitely rendered, from the opening to the steampunk to the endless wastes. Reynolds’ tone is no less variable, ranging from pure fun to awe to terror, and all in the same ten pages. If he’d wanted to end the book with the characters’ view of the Swarm below them and call it a day, I think I would have still walked away trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Review here.

The Folding Knife shares a limited cast with the prior two books, but it differentiates itself by not really being about the imagined world at all. Oh, Basso is in charge of the country, but we really only care about the Vesani as far as Basso feels like being compassionate that day. Parker’s newest novel is cynical, witty, and incredibly deep. It would be easy to make a novel about a single, narcissistic antihero who gets his way and have it be off putting and tensionless, and it’s true that the secondary characters here show a disappointing lack of depth, but Basso himself is humanized by his flaws and fascinating for his peculiar morality. If I were to pick an Epic Fantasy read of the year, it’s undoubtedly this.

Review here.

Apartment 16’s cast is uneven, and the climax is ultimately disappointing. On the other hand, the book’s atmosphere is oppressive enough to smother you on a sunny beach in Florida. Nevill invites the reader along as he splits his characters’ world in two and sends Seth down the dark path. Watching the main character gradually recede from humanity is a painful experience, and it’s only made more so by his occasional intersections with the world that we recognize. This is a dark and uncompromising read that will stay with you long after you’re done with it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Review here.

Abraham's short fiction proved as multifaceted as his novels. Leviathan Wept is a varied and powerful work, capable of terrifying you with one story and warming your heart with the next. The collection was brought down slightly be a few slightly weaker stories as it went on, but this is still an essential read.

Review here.

Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction work is as insidious as his short fiction. The ideas presented in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race are interesting and well argued, if not always persuasive. I didn't put this in the upper list because I've no idea how one can conclusively state that a book of philosophy is "better" than a book of fiction, but this is a work that had to be mentioned in any proper summation of the year.

Habitations of the Blessed is a stunningly original novel that's atypical down to its very structure and framing. This is very much the first book of a longer work, and it's difficult to draw conclusions about Valente's world and its ramifications from just what's here. Still, the barrage of exquisitely bizarre imagery that Valente unleashes makes this a must read for any fans of fantasy fiction or gorgeous prose.

DISCLAIMER

Some people seem to have a rather skewed impression of what Best Of lists actually are. I know that it says Essential Reads on top of this post, but you know what? I’m aware that those are not necessarily the ultimate, objective books of 2010. They are simply my favorite released books of 2010. That does not mean that I have read every book released in 2010 (or even every book I want to read in 2010), or that I have used some sort of unbiased criteria to determine these. The complete list of 2010 releases I've read is as follows, provided to give my picks context and to explain the absence, of, say, That Book You Love That I Haven't Read on my list.

Shine

Daniel Abraham – Leviathan Wept

Iain M. Banks – Surface Detail

Justin Cronin – The Passage

Ian C. Esslemont – Stonewielder

Felix Gilman – The Halfmade World

N.K. Jesmin – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Thomas Ligotti – The Conspiracy against the Human Race

China Mieville – Kraken

Adam LG Nevill – Apartment 16

K.J. Parker – The Folding Knife

Alastair Reynolds – Terminal World

Patrick Rothfuss – The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle

Brandon Sanderson – The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson/Robert Jordan – Towers of Midnight

Sam Sykes – Tome of the Undergates

Cathrynne M. Valente – Habitations of the Blessed

Jeff VanderMeer – The Third Bear

A Few Notes on Review Order

As inconsequential as this instance may be, I don’t like lying to my readers, so I figured I’d come out and say that, when I said that Neverwhere would be getting a review this week in Reading in April, I was unaware that the next day I would be seized with a fit of inspiration and would pump out a review of The City and The City. Seeing as the month is over and there’s no longer any real reason to get the Neverwhere review out as soon as possible (I would’ve liked to be able to mention it in the aforementioned Reading in… post, but that wasn’t to happen), I’m going to post the Mieville first so that it will be up before I read (and review?) Kraken.

While I’m doing this, I feel I might as well mention the other two reviews in the queue and the promised article. I have not had writer’s block with regards to the Sanderson short or the King novel (every review up there is already written); they just keep getting pushed back by more newer, more exciting reviews. I guess it’s an unavoidable result of posting a review a week and writing slightly faster than that, but I always have an itch to show off my new work first. The Sanderson/King will both be coming, though I will still give preference to new releases and books that’ll show up in that month’s summary.

As to the Reynolds article, mentioned in my review of Terminal World, it is still planned, though I’ll admit that I’ve yet to do anything more than find the quote I plan to start off with, though that easily took an hour. Redemption Ark is a damn big book, and I read it before I started noting down my favorite passages. I’m aware that I really shouldn’t have mentioned it till it was on the horizon, but rest assured that it will eventually materialize.

Alastair Reynolds - Terminal World

And in that time, before the gates of paradise were closed to them, men and women were as children. And so plentiful were the fruits and bounties of paradise that they lived for four-score years, and some lived longer than that. And in that time the Earth was warm and blue and green and many were its provinces.

Alastair Reynolds’s latest novel is the easy equal of anything the man’s yet written. Terminal World contains many elements familiar to Reynolds readers; in many ways, Terminal World is the culmination of several trends that have popped up in almost everything that Reynolds has written. Despite those, Terminal World is an outlier in the Reynolds catalog, and if you need proof, let's just look at the covers. Spaceship, spaceship, spaceship, spaceship, spaceship... dirigible?

One of the main differences is Terminal World’s extremely focused narrative. Revelation Space didn’t have an astronomically large number of point of views, but they were scattered over awe inspiring distances in both space and time. Chasm City, as well as many of Reynolds’s other work (Absolution Gap, for instance), features two plot threads that don’t come together until the very end of the novel. Since then, however, Reynolds has been making a conscious effort to streamline his stories. In Terminal World, we see the world only through the eyes of Doctor Quillon and a few one off characters. The change is marked. As opposed to something like Redemption Ark, where Clavain and the other main characters were the ones guiding the story, we see events from the periphery a good amount of the time. That’s not to say that Quillon isn’t important, of course, but he’s only one player amongst many. This close focus adds tension to several parts, but can also occasionally lead to a plot without a clear goal.

As a result of Quillon’s dominance, Terminal World is a very personal novel. To that end, it’s a definite plus that the characterization is generally excellent. At times, Reynolds’s characters seem in danger of falling into standard archetypes, but the traditional climaxes, expected from page one, are absent and the illusion always gives way to something deeper. A good example is Meroka. She has good reason to despise Angels; Quillon is an angel of sorts. I don’t think that anyone will be shocked by knowing that she finds out what he is, and that she hates him for it. In that phase of their relationship, she gives Quillon the following speech:

And you’re wrong about me, if you think there’s forgiveness deep down inside, if only you can find it. Truth to tell Cutter, there’s only more hate. That’s what I am. Clinical-grade hate, all the way through. Keep digging, you’ll only come out on the other side.

Amusingly written, but not particularly surprising. Surely, they are going to have a tearful reunion at some point, right? Well…no. Reynolds characters often tread familiar paths, but they do so without the usual road signs. Melodramatic declarations and epiphanies often allow authors to point out the change in characters without having to make the characters actually change. In Terminal World, the characters never go through one hundred and eighty degree reinventions. Instead, their personalities and friendships evolve subtly and naturally.

Thematically, Terminal World deals with many of the same issues that Reynolds has always dealt with, namely man’s struggle to adapt and survive in a vast and uncaring world. In this case, the endless emptiness of space is replaced with the Zones, different areas that each dictate a different level of technology, or, in extreme cases, prohibit all life.

Reynolds’s prose and worldbuilding here is primarily set to evoke wonder and awe. Moments like the first vision of the Swarm were powerful enough to make me put down the book for a few seconds and just revel in the image. The majority of the book is built like that, with the effect of making the contrasting scenes all the starker. Fleeing in a train that feels like it’s going backwards in time, the delicious strangeness of the scene is stabbed through by the appearance of hellish hunter angels. The variety between the feel of scenes set in Neon Heights and Horsetown, let alone the hellish wastes, is nothing short of amazing.

One of the main feelings you get from reading Terminal World is that of a world with tremendous depth. Everything that we’re shown feels like a part of something much larger, and it’s something that the very limited point of view only emphasizes. As opposed to some settings that feel like a city prop for a play, vibrant when in use and husks of wood when not mid performance, this is a world that feels like it exists round the clock. I can picture people living their lives in Horsetown, and I can picture running in fear from Skullboys even when the camera’s far in the air in another part of the world. I’m praying for a sequel to this world at some point, though I’m unsure just how likely it actually is.

Terminal World’s ending is one of its few weak points. With a few notable exceptions, Reynolds’s endings have always been hit and miss. Now, it seems to me that you can have two kinds of ambiguous endings. You can have the kind where a character’s personal goals are accomplished, but the grander struggle goes on, or, to inverse that, one where the character’s life is still in flux, but the greater battle is done. Both can, and obviously have, been done to great effect. Unfortunately, Terminal World’s ending is ambiguous in both ways, leaving the reader with the feeling that the movie cut out in the final five minutes.

Still, complaining too much about a slightly disappointing ending after reading such a marvelous book feels petty, and the ending does not, after all, come anywhere near damaging the rest of the book. Terminal World is one of Reynolds’s finest works yet. It has everything that has made him such an excellent writer over the years, as well as a whole host of new things, almost all of which succeed brilliantly. If you are even remotely interested in Reynolds (or just good science fiction), you owe it to yourself to read this.

Reading in March

Even doing a review a week, there's no way I can get through all the books I want to get through. There is, of course, no obvious NEED to review everything I've read, but I feel like I should at least mention most of it. I'm not doing this (purely) in a masturbatory, look-what-I've-read fashion, but hopefully also giving you a rough idea about the books I don't have time to talk about in a more developed fashion. I'll also link any reviews I've done for the books, as well as any outside reviews that I found particularly worth reading. So, without further ado, what I read in March:


The Handmaid’s Tale is a disturbing, intriguing novel. It’s very much a novel of excellent prose and slight shifts rather than big explosions, and you need to be digging into every word as you read, but the experience is well worth it. My only qualm is the needlessly ambiguous ending, especially since any actual doubts are resolved in the epilogue.


The first Black Company novel in the omnibus was interesting due to the writing’s simplicity and the world’s refreshing amorality, but I wasn’t totally sold on the series. I can’t say that I’m a total convert yet, but Shadows Linger went a long way toward winning me over. My main gripe with the first volume, the highly episodic nature of the plotting, is absent here, and the character of Shed gives the story some variety. I have no idea how Cook’s going to bring this to a close in just two hundred or so pages, but I guess I’ll find out when I read White Rose next month. Look for a review then.


I’ve heard again and again that Malazan gets worse as it goes along, and I know two or three people who dropped the series at Reaper’s Gale, and yet it’s having the opposite effect on me. I didn’t fall in love until House of Chains, and each successive volume seems to just drag me deeper. This volume wasn’t perfect, of course (none of the Malazan books are even close to that), but like with all the other volumes, there are enough jaw dropping positives to overpower the occasional cringe worthy negative. I’m going to try and wrap up the Malazan series in a grand series of reviews once I get caught up.


Mad Ship is even better than Ship of Magic, and Ship of Magic in turn was even better than Farseer. At this rate, Liveships is going to quite possibly become my favorite trilogy. The characterization is just as good here, the world is broad and interesting, and the plot will occasionally surprise the hell out of you…though it probably wouldn’t have helped if the back cover didn’t reveal the first few hundred pages of the book quite so glibly. Look for my review once I finish the trilogy.


I’ve said it before (to myself, if that counts) that Stephen King is the best modern horror author there is (though I haven’t read nearly enough to properly make that statement), and that The Shining is his best novel (there I think I can qualify, having read over twenty of ‘em). I’ve been truly terrified by three stories – and I mean terrified, not kinda uncomfortable or whatever the hell most horror movies are shooting at – and the Shining has one of those three scenes. The horror, however, is far from the main part. Jack’s struggle with himself is torturous to watch, yet some of the best writing I’ve ever read. The ending is awful, but compared to some of King’s others it’s only kinda-awful, so I guess we’re lucky there. If you haven’t read the Shining yet, you’re missing out.


I have no idea why I picked Stephen King’s latest short story collection, when his earliest was stocked right next to it, no less, but I did, and I really wish I hadn’t. Everything’s Eventual is the first time that I’ve been truly disappointed by King, but damn did it hurt. My complete review is here.


The City and the City is a bit of an outlier for Mieville, but it succeeds at what it set out to do with ease. The book’s cornerstone, the two overlapping cities and their mutual ignoring campaign, is thought provoking and well handled, and the cinematic prose style (as in a lack of interior thoughts, not a lot of explosions) conveyed the atmosphere quite well. Unfortunately, both of those are interesting techniques that don’t make for easy reads. In addition, the ending, while technically filling all of the holes, was more than a bit disappointing. Though I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions, James has a good review of this up that should let you get a decent idea of the contents.


You know when you’ve built your expectations about something to the point where you know it’s going to disappoint you? And then it surpasses even those? Yeah, that’s what happened with Terminal World. It’s not a perfect novel, but it’s impossible to predict and written with a ridiculous amount of panache. If I were to compare it to something, I’d say that it’d be an odd mixture of Century Rain, Mieville’s bibliography. If you like Reynolds, you need to read this. If I succeed in composing my thoughts, I’ll write a review of this in a week or two. Until then, I'll contrast the Wert review I posted earlier with the Walker of Worlds one that I just read. Though some of the things he disliked were precisely why I loved the book, the review's quite informative and should give you a good idea of what you're getting into. UPDATE, I've now reviewed this here.


Old Man’s War was a fun, easy ride that had some intriguing ideas under its hood. The whole experience was slightly marred, however, by occasional clichés (which aren’t helped by Scalzi’s pointing them out) and a few scenes that are just too over the top to be effective. If you’ve read the book, you know what I mean. Hint: it involves Lilliputians. Still, I’ll be reading more of Scalzi’s work without a doubt. If you want a more comprehensive look at the novel, check out Aidan’s review. For a glimpse of some more of the novel's faults, go here.


This was absolutely delightful. The play is laugh out loud funny at several points, and the underlying ideas are brilliant. I only have two regrets: 1. That I couldn’t see it performed, and 2. That I didn’t get a chance to write down some of the passages before having to return my copy.


Not every story in this collection works, but every story tries something new and imaginative. There are three main story cycles here, as well as a few miscellaneous pieces, and all three are quite varied. The collection contains little in the way of new Ambergris material, though that’s not to say none, but the Incan stories are completely new and quite intriguing. Though I’d already read the majority of the Veniss stories in Veniss Underground, I was far more impressed the second time around, and I think my older treatment of them was more than a tad superficial. VanderMeer has yet to disappoint me, and he certainly didn’t do it here.

Alastair Reynolds Interviewed (Elsewhere)

I got home today having spent every waking moment anticipating diving into Alastair Reynolds’s newest. At times, it felt a bit like I was stuck in the Coming Attractions portion of the show, with standout scenes from his earlier novels replaying themselves in my head and a huge banner saying TERMINAL WORLD – COMING SOON popping up every few minutes. So, when I threw open the door to the mailbox, I’m sure you can imagine my disappointment when I was left bookless. Seeking to dull the edge of the craving, no matter how short lived the relief might be, I went onto the internet and found this interview.

First of all, Alec’s one lucky son of a bitch. On a more important note, Reynolds definitely has some interesting stuff to say. The misunderstandings about Terminal World are interesting, and they probably tie back to the Book of the New Sun inspiration. Something to keep in mind for my eventual review for sure. Of more interest still are the mentions of Reynolds new work. The trilogy looks to be both larger in scale than almost anything Reynolds has done (the mere thought of which boggles the mind) and also, at least at first, far closer to our present day.

Up and Coming (and Essential?) in March

To be fair, this is out already, but I didn’t think to start this feature until now, and the book was released in March, so I’m doing it anyway. Spellwright is a high magic debut that seems like a much lighter, easier read than a lot of the other books coming out this month. That being said, it seems to set itself apart with its focus on disabilities (written by an author with firsthand experience). For a better idea of the work as a whole, I’ll refer you over to Aidan’s review.


The description sounds interesting, but what’s really got me excited about this (besides the Reynolds tag) is Wert’s review. Reynolds doing New Weird? Hell yes. Ever since the conclusion of the Revelation trilogy (and barring the Prefect), Reynolds writing and world building seem to have gotten steadily less oppressive, and this seems like the culmination of that shift. I’ve also always thought that Reynolds was often great with character, so it’s going to be good to read a book in which he capitalizes on that. As for when it comes out, try tomorrow (the 15th). Yes, that’s right. If you haven’t ordered this yet, and if you like Science Fiction, I don’t know what the hell you’re waiting for.


Billed as a cross genre anthology and focusing on fightin’ men, Warriors features more than enough huge names to get almost any genre fan salivating. Stories from Hobb, Beagle, Williams, and a lot more. Oh, and some Martin fellow has his third Dunk and Egg story in there. Though I don’t think that there’re any reviews out there yet, you can get a pretty good idea of what’s inside over at Westeros and Wert’s done a piece on the Martin story. The whole thing’s coming out on Tuesday (the 16th). UPDATE: Wert's posted a full, and glowing, review of the collection here.


Anyone who listens to Writing Excuses should have a pretty good idea of who Dan Wells is. I Am Not A Serial Killer’s been out for a while in Britain, but it’s first coming out in America on the 30th. Don’t let yourself be put off by the YA tag, this book is precisely written and has some great atmosphere. And that’s not mentioning the superb characterization of serial killer-obsessed lead John Wayne Cleaver. I’m not crazy about the direction the book starts to go in at around the halfway point, but I think that’s mostly a case of me and Wells wanting different things out of the story. If you want to head over to the Horror side of Speculative Fiction, this is something you should definitely check out.

UPDATE

I should point out something about the above list (and the feature in general): It's quite personalized. So, basically, I'm not claiming to represent every book coming out this month. The ignored ones almost all fall into the following category: Books that, for some reason or other, I have no interest in. I could, of course, throw up some cover art and paraphrase the amazon blurb, but what's the point? If you know of the book, and if I have nothing new to contribute to it, I'm sure I'm just saving both of us time.

Those that do not are ones that I have some ulterior motive for ignoring. And, by ulterior, I mean marginally paranoid. I wouldn't feel safe posting about Hobb's Dragon Haven, for instance...what if it contained some insidious spoiler about what awaits me in Ship of Destiny?

Alastair Reynolds - Thousandth Night/Minla's Flowers

They called them Minla’s Flowers.

Thousandth Night/Minla’s Flowers is a gorgeous book. The artwork (for both stories) is excellent, and the text is nicely spaced out. Of course, simply being pretty is rarely good enough to necessitate a purchase. In that department, my mild obsession with everything Alastair Reynolds no doubt helped a bit. There’s plenty to like in his writing. He can write strong characters, both in very dramatic (Chasm City) and very realistic (Pushing Ice) ways; he is one of the absolute best world builders I’ve ever read; his explanations of mind boggling physics are enough to make me forget how incompetent I am at basic science; and his plotting is fast and filled with twists.

Despite all this, I’m always apprehensive when I pick up Reynolds, and Minla’s Flowers is a perfect example of why. It’s not that the ideas are inferior – I’m unsure whether Reynolds has ever thought of a concept that’s less than brilliant – but, sometimes, the execution leaves them floundering. See, Reynolds is always an intellectual pleasure. If you think about almost any of his stories or concepts, you’re amazed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always succeed in crossing the gap and being a visceral pleasure as well.

The novella is primarily about viewing a person’s life through snapshots. Well, alright, there’s some other stuff. A ship crash lands, an inevitable doom is slowly coming, a people have to go through hundreds and hundreds of years of scientific progress in a century, etc. Really, though, this is the story of Minla. Merlin wakes from his cryogenic sleep once every decade or so, and each time he meets a changed Minla, as she does what she believes is necessary to save her people.

The concept is interesting, and some of the questions raised quite though provoking, but the snapshots are too rare for us to ever really get to know Minla. We can appreciate the changes, yes, but there’s no gut reaction when we go from seeing her as a girl to as an elderly woman, kept standing by a mixture of a cane and her own determination. In the same vein, we’re never invited into the society of the Skylanders, and we never grow to really sympathize with any of the characters outside of Minla and Merlin.

Thousandth Night, on the other hand, is certainly not a disappointment. House of Suns was one of my favorite science fiction novels, but it has the same problem that all tales of lost glamour have: sometimes you want to see the grandeur, not the ashes. Thousandth Night fulfills that desire perfectly, taking place thousands of years earlier than House of Suns and featuring the Gentian Line in its prime.

We get to attend a reunion, in which each member of the Strand contributes their memories to the collective pool, recounting their experience of the last two hundred thousand years. Of course, the problem with perfection is a marked lack of strife, and so some things pretty quickly begin to go awry. Over the course of the story, we get to solve a mystery, see a space battle, and witness Campion and Purslane embark on the character arks that wouldn’t reach their conclusion until House of Suns.

The problem with a novella that fills in so much background, however, is that I’m unsure anyone who isn’t familiar with the other text would get nearly as much enjoyment from it as I did. With no prior knowledge, the Gentian Strand might seem a bit too powerful, and the characters – though not flat here by any means – don’t truly become worthwhile without the bigger picture.

Thousandth Night/Minla’s Flowers is a collector’s item through and through. If you want to read everything that Reynolds has written, or if you were as intrigued by House of Suns as I was, this collection is well worth picking up. If, on the other hand, you’re just getting started on Reynolds, wait until you’ve read (and loved) his other stuff before looking into this one.