SF Review; William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

It begins with a hallucinatory stumble though the neon lights and filth of a technological ghetto. ‘Chiba City Blues’ is as iconic as first chapters get; a rush of confusing images, bypassed breathlessly by both protagonist and reader, that nevertheless attach themselves to memory and cling there, ready to flash upwards from the subconscious when jolted awake. It is as effective a manifesto as ‘cyberpunk’ received, but long after that genre has been muted, Neuromancer remains large on the landscape of science fiction.

This has a lot to do with the sheer energy of Gibson’s writing. We shadow Case, an empty ex-hacker reduced to drug addiction and dangerous deals in the alleys of Chiba City, as he is co-opted by a mysterious woman with razors under her nails and black glass covering her eyes, who offers a return to the cyberspace he is addicted to. Her purpose isn’t clear, ambiguous to both Case and the reader, but as he is dragged across the world by the woman and her paymaster we are fed drips of information amongst the filth of Gibson’s writing that may, or may not, represent truth. The story is a bright line of light shone through a flurry of white noise; the scummy details of Gibson’s nightmare world exciting and revolting equally, viciously obscuring reality. It’s a thrilling ride.

Interestingly, Gibson, rather than building to a furious climax like most authors would, slows the pace as we approach the final events. As Case is forced away from drug addiction and back into the cyberspace which brings him comfort and focus, at one stage he cuddles his computer like a child, the novel breathes more regularly, and we can feel this change in him. Nothing more than a shell when we first meet him, Case fills up with memories, events piling up on him; and since the reader is thrust so suddenly into the story, we are filled with the same memories. When those flash to the surface, obscure in their meaning and with an indefinable feeling of threat surrounding them, we feel Case’s fear, and eventually his nihilism, as acutely as him.

As the vague story resolves itself, like a scrambled picture becoming ever clearer, we learn of an ancient and secret war between two A.I’s and the family that created them. These machines get into Case, and hover around the brilliantly imaginative characters he travels with, tormenting and seducing them as they choose. His future seems out of his hands for much the novel, as we sometimes feel, today, that we are at the whim of machines, but eventually it is Case that makes the difference, and changes things, even if he doesn’t consciously choose to. After all the filth, deception and pain, it ends with a sigh of relief.

SF Review: JG Ballard, The Wind From Nowhere (1962)

Reading The Drowned World, Ballard’s much celebrated and precient account of a world transformed by rapid global warming was one of the things that really got me reading science fiction in such concentrated amounts. Images, characters, situations, and most importantly, the examination into the subconscious psychological effects such an affecting disaster could have on an entire populace. This novel, telling the story of a gale-force wind circulating the globe, gaining steadily in speed and potency, was Ballard’s first, proceeding Drowned World by a year, and although his powers were not quite yet at their peak, you can see the seeds from which those lofty heights would grow.

This is a far more typical science fiction disaster novel than Ballard’s later work, with a narrative rooted far more in the ‘golden age’ of the 50’s than any ‘new wave’. For example, while Ballard’s later novels concentrate on one particular character who is unwillingly either caught up in or drawn towards events, here we are granted the viewpoint of several protagonists, each one involved somehow in battling the effects of disaster. Maitland, a doctor unable to fly from his home in London due to the increasing winds, seems a typical Ballard character at first, but as the wind begins it’s inevitable destruction of the English capital he is soon drafted by the army to assist victims and stragglers who have failed to take refuge. Simon Marshall commands a hastily constructed special unit attempting to coordinate communication through the storm, although hints that his allegience may lie in more mysterious places. We are even given an urbane, bluff commander called Lanyon who saves families stranded in churches and is comfortable sleeping with a virtual stranger even as their companions are slaughtered by the raw power of the wind, a type of character I would never have expected Ballard to write. With this concentration on the militaries efforts rather than on ordinary people Ballard is far more in the realms of typical science fiction, complete with ‘hero’ characters and an epic struggle against impossible force.

And yet there are times when Ballard just shifts across into another mode, into an altogether stranger place of alien emotions and psychological crises. The detailed description of London as seen through Maitland’s eyes, almost ordinary but for the slowly growing piles of fine, red dust blown from some exotic desert and collecting at the base of every wall, curb or lampost. The strange quietness of it all, bar an occasional smash of glass or muffled scream, carried away on the wind almost as soon as the sound is made. It’s a poetically resonant moment, and similar moments crop up time and again to haunt a reader’s throughts, their ambiguity refusing to let go. It’s something that would become familiar in Ballard’s later novels, but the idea of physically and mentally fragile people giving themselves up to disaster – here allowing themselves to be carried off by the wind to be dashed on the rubble of the city – is still both horrific and beguiling. Ballard allows you to feel the seduction that the disaster can offer to these souls.

The Wind From Nowhere also, more so even than Ballard’s later work, resonates in todays climate of fear. When characters shelter in darkened places, listening to the radio to hear the latest extent of the tragedy it jolts memories both of stormy power cuts from my childhood, and of watching the growing death toll from the tsunami several christmasses ago. The chaos and panic present in the impossibly difficult rescue missions to save possible survivors from the disintegrating city of London cannot fail but bring to mind images of the London bombings and of the terror that that previously implausible event caused.

Finally, despite Ballard seemingly disowning this book and banishing it from ‘previous novel’ lists in his later publications, we are given a formative glance at what could be termed his ‘manifesto for disaster’. In the final act we are shown a man who feels he must battle the wind, who must stand up to it and not be driven below ground like the rest of the world’s remaining population. He is seduced by the disaster, like Ballard’s later protagonists would be, but his efforts to battle against that disaster are his eventual downfall. It is those who take the reality of the wind and, instead of fighting it’s might, accept it and even use it to their advantage that will thrive; a group of European men collecting food and living in a monestary’s catacombs, a branch of the army setting up a 50’s style bar in an underground station; even Lanyon, our heroic officer, who steadfastly retains his character even as the wind reaches ludicrous speeds but does not battle the wind itself. What Ballard suggests is that, in times of the greatest madness, what individuals must do is accept that madness and ride it out until either it sudsides, or everything is destroyed.

SF Review; Robert Reed, Marrow (2001)

 Robert Reed’s a bit of a veteran of the short-story branch of Science Fiction, having written about a bazillion of them, and although he seems to have tried his hand at a longer piece before, this is really his first book that has been widely published and given a bit of marketing. Orbit Publishing seemed to market this firmly towards the ‘New Space Opera’ movement, whatever that is, and the recently popular ‘dark’ writings of authors like Alastair Reynolds. Can Reed pull off a big success and transcend the boundaries of sub-sub-genre stagnation? Unfortunately, the answer is largely ‘no.’

What we do get a lot of is Big Ideas. We’re on a vast ship, seemingly with a degree of sentience, in which millions of alien species live, temporarily or otherwise, as high paying tourists on a never ending galactic cruise. Platoons of Captains, who live for indefinate thousands of years, play host to them, led by their Master Captain, an artificially huge woman stuffed full of electronics used for monitoring the ship. There are even a race of vacuum inhabiting mutants, evolved from rogue Captains, clinging to the outside of the hull. It’s all commendably imaginative and large, although not entirely fresh, which makes it even more dissapointing when Reed begins to slip up in his narrative.

Things, naturally, don’t stay calm for very long, and before we’ve even had a proper look at the ship or the central characters they’re diving headlong into disaster. There’s a few more impressive ideas, including his best, a metal enrished biosphere complete with golden trees and ruddy insects, but without the time to catch our breath Reed fails to make the most of these. There isn’t a likable character among the protagonists; the ones I suspect you were supposed to like are too dull to be attractive, and even the ambiguous, manipulative ones are never interesting enough to care about. This renders things a little confusing – why would a group of allegedly strong willed people follow these uninspiring, and too obviously menacing folk? As decades, and sometimes centuries, peel away without heed I found myself plowing through to get to the next Big Idea, empathising or caring about nothing else.

Then there is the prose style.

Reed is obsessed with the one sentence paragraph.

It can, like many structural devices, work wonders if used judiciously, something Reynolds has got right many times in fact. The first few times Reed uses them it sometimes works, or is forgivable, but by the time we furrow into the middle of this lengthy novel he seems to be sticking them pretty much anywhere just for laughs. That I didn’t care about any of the characters, or indeed the ship, and therefore didn’t really care about the element of danger they’re in, these attempts to imbue the narrative with weight just look cynical and, even, embarrasing.

On the plus side, Reed’s writing, when it avoids cliches, is actually quite good. He isn’t very clear when describing fast action, but I suspect he’s just gone a bit too far down the ‘disorientating readers to mirror the confusion of the characters’ road that seems quite fashionable at the moment, so at least he’s trying. Also, as I say, the Big Ideas are very good, and very, very, big, although this does make it more dissapointing when he fails to make the most of them. The ship, for example, while a good idea, only ever feels like a slightly larger version of Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine. Also, potentially interesting themes like faith and the construction of religious figureheads appear briefly, but flit out of view too quickly to offer any insights. The whole thing is really rather frustrating to read.

Maybe Robert Reed should stick with short stories, they’re probably perfect for his ideas and prose style. In a novel, however, ideas have to be grown to fruition, and drama must come from empathy, not a one-sentence paragraph.

SF Review; Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel (1954) & The Naked Sun (1957)

With the exception of the Foundation series, these two novels are probably Asimov’s most famous and acclaimed. They form a part of the ‘Robot Series,’ and feature heavy use of the ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ as a theme and backbone to the mysteries our detective hero must solve. These books are, essentially, crime novels set in a future society where humans on Earth have evolved to live in overcrowded, underground cities, uncomfortable but safely mothered by their environment; their lives only antagonised by the apparently perfect Spacers, humans who broke away centuries ago to live seemingly enlightened lives alongside robots away from Earth. The jealous enmity that Earthlings feel for their self-proclaimed superiors form the background, and most interesting part of these novels, for the crimes and the mysteries associated with them never really gripped me.

The Caves of Steel is set entirely in a future New York, entombed under the steel of the title, and it is a wonderful setting that Asimov elaborates brilliantly as we follow detective Elijah Bailey on his case; sweaty, grimy and packed with people living off yeast byproducts in tiny apartments with communal showers. Their existence is endlessly uncomfortable and selfish, but each of them loves it in a way, comforted by the walls and the busy, constant noise like babies wrapped in blankets. Bailey’s comfort in broken, however, by a shocking murder in the usually peaceful Spacer encampment; one that the Spacers insist must have been committed by a New York Earthling. Bailey is forcibly partnered with a robot, Daneel Olivaw, who cannot be told apart from a human, and with a combination of Bailey’s human instinct and Olivaw’s robotic logic they form an effective and entertaining ‘odd couple’ to solve the case. Bailey’s inherent, instinctive dislike and suspicion of Olivaw is the greatest acheivement of the novel, and the situations that result from it are extremely memorable. However, while getting to the solution of the murder is entertaining and thematically interesting; the solution itself is not particularly accomplished. It’s fairly obvious who Asimov is establishing as the culprit, even if you can’t figure out how, and the final piece of evidence is a little rediculous, but nevertheless, it’s a very good novel.

The Naked Sun sees Bailey and Olivaw reunite, but this time Bailey is forced to face his eternal fear of leaving his beloved city, and being reborn into the outdoors on a Spacer world where robots outnumber humans by thousands to one, and yet still a murder was commited, something the robotic laws should strictly forbid. The theme elaborated on here is the specifics of those laws, and again, it’s extremely entertaining and successful to watch Bailey think his way around these apparently irrefutable truths. His reaction to the naked sun is also well realised, if a little conveinient in places, and his dealings with humans who have been taught never to interract, apart from with robots, are also brilliantly conceived. Once again, however, the actual murder investigation itself is left wanting, the killer easily identified and accused as, seemingly, an after thought.

Asimov does an awful lot right with these books, but he isn’t perfect either. For starters, he is clearly very left-brained, and the way he writes humans is a little bit simplified, each character confirming to his or her role all too perfectly; Earthling humans are all as rough and antiquated as the next; Spacer humans are steralised and aloof; every individual reduced to a product of their society. Asimov treats character as a social science. Not only that, but women get a particularly short shrift, being either sexually provocative, lustful waifs, or worrying, motherly, panicy idiots. It’s an understandable shortcoming for a writer working in the early 50’s, yet still jarring for a 21st Century reader. There are other naive assumptions about the future as well; Asimov’s far-future Earth is profoundly overcrowded to bursting, but he states that it only contains 8bn people, where at last count we were already up to 6.5bn, and we’re nowhere near to moving underground. Also, a continuing use of things like glasses suggests a not particularly forward thinking future, but I suppose it was only the mid-20th century. Bless ‘em.

Overall these books are good reads and enjoyably retro sci-fi, required reading but really only for the presentation of robots and of the womb-city. The scene where Bailey is reborn into the comforting arms of steel covered New York is worth it alone. Just don’t be too dissapointed by the detective stories tacked on to get Asimov’s themes across.

SF Review; Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice (2005)

Reynolds loves his big, dark science fiction, and the vast, gothic canvas on which he writes has made him one of the most popular and acclaimed writers of ‘New Space Opera,’ with it’s universe wide conceptions and zillions of characters. His books are extremely enjoyable and captivating, with many fascinating, detailed ideas, and he is undoubtedly accomplished in his style; but like most of the other authors who fit into that hastily constructed genre, he has a few niggling problems that give slight reservations. Pushing Ice is his sixth novel, although only the second not set within his Revelation Space universe, and he is beginning to iron out some of those issues, although in this novel, much like the characters he throws to the mercy of fate, for every step forwards Reynolds takes another one back.

The novel begins on Rockhopper, a labouring ship built to drag ice filled comets back to the corporations who use it for fuel. We meet captain Bella Lind and her crew as they struggle with the boredom and difficulty of working in space, and in such close proximity. Their routine is broken, however, with reports that one of Saturn’s moons, Janus, has launched itself from orbit and is barreling mysteriously out of the solar system at huge speeds. Rockhopper is, naturally, the only ship in the system that can catch up with the moon before it goes too far out of range, and the crew are tasked with the mission to study it on the fly before returning home. From there, paranoia, disagreement and proximity increase tensions on board to melting point, and as the ship approaches Janus it becomes clear that their fates are being taken far out of Lind and her officers control.

Pushing Ice begins very slowly, and takes it’s time as we get to know Lind, her crew, and the operation of Rockhopper. A reader used to Reynolds’ technique of ‘future shock’ might even find this opening a little tedious, but there is enough craft put into the character development to grip and you soon care about these people. The tensions on board are well constructed, and Lind’s attempt to hold things together is effective emotionally, accomplishments that are new and refreshing to see in Reynolds’ work. Later, as the ship inevitably reaches Janus, however, the pace quickens considerably, which is both a relief for the excitement starved reader, and quite a jarring juxtaposition. Reynolds falls back on his chief talent; describing a dark, bizarre landscape with untold mysteries awaiting it’s new, human occupants, and his imagery is, as usual, skillfully done and very absorbing. But the increased pace leaves character development adrift, and as years are stripped away between chapters, the people we became attached to start to feel like strangers.

Later still, mysteries deepen, aliens begin to appear, strange events begin to add up to a solution decades in the making. It’s all very good science fiction; a huge canvas, great descriptions, imaginative ideas and creatures; but it almost feels like a different book to the one we started reading, and the early promise of a more emotional, tense, restrained Reynolds is broken. The conclusion to this new book is very satisfying, and in many ways surprising, another great step forward to Reynolds who has had problems closing his books in the past, notably with Absolution Gap. But again, there is a step backwards here too, as a couple of explanations don’t quite make sense, if a reader is inclined to think through them, an affliction that has never troubled Reynolds before.

Reynolds finishes with a fatalistic, but hopeful note that succesfully resonates, and I was left satisfied, but this is not the perfect novel that I’m still convinced his talents could manage.