Friday Round-Up: Stephenson @SFFWorld, McCammon & Mind Melds @SFSignal

We’ve hit that “every other Friday” wherein I do my linkdump post, highlighting the reviews and other things I’ve posted on line.

Last week, my review of the Seveneves, the smartest blockbuster and most thought-out and plausible apocalyptic novel I’ve ever read went live at SFFWorld:

What if the moon blew up and its pieces posed an apocalyptic threat to the Earth? How would the world deal with it and engage in long-term planning for civilization? If you want an answer to that quandary, particularly, Neal Stephenson’s answer, then dive into his latest novel Seveneves. That is exactly how the novel begins, with something later to be dubbed the Agent. An early caution, Stephenson never reveals the source of the Agent for its only bearing on the novel is setting events in motion and causing the moon to explode. This is initially met with awe, wonder, and shock. Only after these emotions have settled themselves does pragmatism enter, in the form of Doc Dubois, who is all but a stand in for Neil de Grasse Tyson; a brilliant scientist with many, many followers on social media and a man who helps to disseminate science to the masses.

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Stephenson seems to revel in focusing on granular details of some of construction of his space habitat and many of the particulars involving the technological aspects of the Cloud Ark comprise a great deal of the text of the novel. Some of that minutiae halted the progress, for I was much more enthralled in the character interactions between Dinah, Doc Dubois, J.B.F. and the other characters as they struggled to keep humanity alive from a sociopolitical perspective. Writing this review I’ve come to think that perhaps that’s the rub Stephenson is positing here – humanity can survive such a cataclysm from a technological ingenuity perspective, it is the egos of individuals and their societal upbringings that would be the largest barrier.

Speaking of apocalypses, one of the formative writers of my youth, Robert R. McCammon published a new novel in the Epic Horror/SF vein this week and I was lucky enough to get a copy and review it for SF Signal. The Border was a great novel and an interesting contrast to Seveneves:

Earth is being torn apart by war, cities have been destroyed and humanity is struggling for survival. Superficially, this is a familiar apocalyptic scenario. This war, however, is not one contested by human civilizations. Earth happens to be the border (thus the title) for two warring alien civilizations, dubbed by the world as the Cyphers and the Gorgons. Not only are these two alien civilizations carelessly destroying the Earth, but in their wake some of humanity is transformed into zombie-like creatures known as Grey Men. With this first layer of familiarity peeled away to reveal the reason for the ravaged Earth, The Border, Robert McCammon’s return to the grand-scale dark novels that made him famous, begins to take shape.

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There’s almost a sense that McCammon was away from genre for so long that he wanted to put everything including the kitchen sink into this novel. While this is being heralded as a Horror novel (mainly, I suspect, because that is what the author is best known for writing), The Border is also very much a Science Fiction novel and Post-Apocalyptic novel considering Earth is nearly destroyed by two alien civilizations. These varying flavors or elements intertwine so well and naturally in an elegant, seamless fashion.

Also at SF Signal, my June Mind Meld went live, wherein I ask Karen Burnham, Gav Pugh, Kristi Charish, Brad Beaulieu, and Linda Nagata the following question:

Genre Awards: What Are They Good for Anyway?

It seems there are more and more awards every year, from the early days of the Hugo and Nebula Awards to multiple awards nowadays, and controversies surrounding many of them. For you as a genre reader/writer and part of the community, what purpose to genre awards serve, either a specific award or awards in general.

Last week, Paul turned the tables on me and invited me to contribute to his Mind Meld: Writing in Another Author’s Universe:

Along that vein of Sword and Sorcery, a character that is far too overlooked is Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane. While C.S. Friedman leans more towards the grand-scale Epic end of fantasy, darkness permeates both writer’s works and I think it would be fun to see C.S. Friedman pick up spin a tale of Kane. Plus, there is some resonance between Damian Vryce and Kane. This would also give me another excuse to revisit Wagner’s original Kane stories.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2015-05-02)

Another nice batch of books for the previous week. As I intimated in twitter, the Stephenson is the highlight...

The Hanged Man by P.N. Elrod (Tor Hardcover 05/19/2015) – Elrod is most well known for a slew of well-received Vampire novels, here she turns to a Victorian fantasy mystery and the first of a series.

On a freezing Christmas Eve in 1879, a forensic psychic reader is summoned from her Baker Street lodgings to the scene of a questionable death. Alexandrina Victoria Pendlebury (named after her godmother, the current Queen of England) is adamant that the death in question is a magically compromised murder and not a suicide, as the police had assumed, after the shocking revelation contained by the body in question, Alex must put her personal loss aside to uncover the deeper issues at stake, before more bodies turn up.

Turning to some choice allies--the handsome, prescient Lieutenant Brooks, the brilliant, enigmatic Lord Desmond, and her rapscallion cousin James--Alex will have to marshal all of her magical and mental acumen to save Queen and Country from a shadowy threat. Our singular heroine is caught up in this rousing gaslamp adventure of cloaked assassins, meddlesome family, and dark magic.

"Murder, mayhem and tea--a well-bred Victorian urban fantasy thriller. Prepare, o reader, to be enthralled."--Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times Best Selling Author of the Mercy Thompson series on P.N. Elrod's The Hanged Man

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey June 2015) – I thoroughly enjoyed the first few books (His Majesty’s Dragon) of Novik’s Temeraire series by admittedly, my interest waned as the series continued. This is a fresh new world and looks to be a modern twist on a Fairy Tale.

Naomi Novik, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Liar’s Island (A Pathfinder Tales novel) by Tim Pratt (Paizo Trade Paperback 08/15/2015) – I’ve got quite a few of Pratt’s novels on Mount Toberead now, he’s one of the authors whose work I really want to catch up with, this is his third Pathfinder novel featuring these characters.

Rodrick is a con man as charming as he is cunning. Hrym is a talking sword of magical ice, with the soul and spells of an ancient dragon. Together, the two travel the world, parting the gullible from their gold and freezing their enemies in their tracks. But when the two get summoned to the mysterious island of Jalmeray by a king with genies and elementals at his command, they'll need all their wits and charm if they're going to escape with the greatest prize of all-their lives. From Hugo Award winner Tim Pratt comes a tale of magic, assassination, monsters, and cheerful larceny, in Pathfinder: Liar's Island, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Binary (®evolution #2) by Stephanie Saulter (Jo Fletcher Books Hardcover 05/05/2015) –Second in Saulter’s well-received SF series. Unfortunately, I didn’t get book 1 so I’ll likely pass on this one..

Zavcka Klist has reinvented herself: no longer the ruthless gemtech enforcer determined to keep the gems they created enslaved, she's now all about transparency and sharing the fruits of Bel'Natur's research to help gems and norms alike. 

Neither Aryel Morningstar nor Dr. Eli Walker are convinced that Klist or Bel'Natur can have changed so dramatically, but the gems have problems that only a gemtech can solve. In exchange for their help, digital savant Herran agrees to work on Klist's latest project: reviving the science that drove mankind to the brink of extinction. 

Then confiscated genestock disappears from a secure government facility, and the more DI Varsi investigates, the closer she comes to the dark heart of Bel'Natur and what Zavcka Klist is really after-not to mention the secrets of Aryel Morningstar's own past...

SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson (Harper Voyager / William Morrow 05/19/2015) – A new Neal Stephenson novel is always an event. I’m sadly under-read in his backlist having only read and loved Snow Crash. This is a beautiful book, with lovely endpapers and some color inserts.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

Grant Morrison and Neal Stephenson Reviewed at SFFWorld

The two-new-reviews-per-week-at-SFFWorld theme continues with a review from Mark Yon and yours truly. We both reviewed books by giants in their chosen subgenre, so both books could be seen as eagerly anticipated.

Mark takes a look at one SF’s brand name writer’s latest novel, Neal Stephenson’s Reamde:

So: your starter for 10. Is it Reamde? Remade? Reamed? Read Me?

Just working out the title can be a complication in itself. But then that’s what you should expect with Neal Stephenson’s books. It’s a well known adage in the genre that if you read Neal Stephenson’s books, you’re there for a long journey.

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For what is typical of Neal’s work is that when you buy into it, you’re there for the immersive experience. Often challenging (Anathem invented new language, for example), it’s not usually for the faint hearted.

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But where this one scores is that, unlike some of his earlier work, it’s more accessible to the layman and I suspect will be another one of those genre books read by non-genre readers. In other words, I suspect that, in the UK at least, this is where Neal does ‘a China Mieville’ and achieves mega-status as Neal has already done in the US.

I’ve been reading comic books for the better part of a quarter century (holy shit!) and one of the writers who always has, at the very least, some interesting stories is Grant Morrison. A couple of months ago, he published Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human., which is one part historical overview, one part love letter to comics/superheroes, and one small part biography. Great stuff, here's the obligatory cover shot, link, and review excerpt:

Where he seems to have the most joy in expounding knowledge is The Silver Age – the second major era of comics from roughly 1956 through the 1970s which serves as the second part of the book. In this era, some of the most bizarre storylines and characters came to the page and it is an era in which much of Morrison’s writing seems to evoke or homage. This is the time when DC Comics relaunched many of their existing superheroes under new guises – the Barry Allen Flash and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern being the two most notable. The Silver Age, as Morrison points out with glee, is also the birth of the Multiverse.
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While the book is indeed a must-have historical overview of the capes and tights characters and their stories, Supergods also serves as a partial personal memoir. Morrison doesn’t shy away from highlighting his own impressive work, and if it wasn’t so impressive and important to the genre, it could be considered shilling his own work. What keeps it from being simple shilling is the sheer honesty with which Morrison relates the historical perspective in which his comic-book work sits.