Astounding Apocalypse and Robots!

Mark kept busy during the holidays, posting several reviews while I continued my weekly pace of a review per week.

Mark continues to produce reviews in the same way people breathe – rapidly and without missing a beat. A novel that turned out to be a favorite of his upon completion is the latest: The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown by Paul Malmont:

Here’s a great example of a book that mixes real events with fiction, and real people with some fictional.

The real events involve the war work of some of our legendary science fiction writers: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, L. Ron Hubbard. It is well documented in books, such as William H. Patterson’s recent biography of Robert A. Heinlein, that these writers worked together under Heinlein at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyards.

Here things are taken a step further, in that Malmont supposes that in 1943 this gang of intensely serious, studious and gifted authors are actually involved in a covert war mission. The so-called Kamikaze Group, led by Bob, are given the task of turning the science-fictional flights of imagination into something real. Ron and Isaac are employed to create an invisibility paint but really want to make scientist Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower work as a Wunderwaffe, a ‘wonder weapon’. The rumour is that Tesla has made this work, but shut it down following its initial tests. Tesla is now dead, believed by some such as Gernsback as murdered, so its purpose is unclear. Is it an energy beam with unlimited power, a weapon of mass destruction or a means of providing free energy to those who want it? And does it work?

Lots of debuts were published this year, but perhaps the most interesting and ranging group of debut novels were published by Nightshade Books. I haven’t had chance to read all of them, but Rob Ziegler’s Seed, is quite impressive:

The Earth Mother waking and a bleak, dystopic future aren’t new trappings of the genre, but Ziegler’s voice gives these elements a freshness. To this, he’s added a traveling band of nomadic Hispanic youths in the dustbowl-like plains focusing on Brood and his younger brother Pollo who is abducted early in the novel. The chaos continues when a designer once beholden to Satori goes her own way and the government, in the form of agent Sienna Doss, is charged with bringing her back in the hopes of the government regaining control of Satori, and therefore, the United States itself. Along the way, Ziegler brings these separate plot threads together, interweaving them with a skill that belies the fact that Seed is his first published novel.
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The book itself is really a work of art, the cover by Cody Tilson is eye-catching and encapsulates the feel and theme of the book very well. To be balanced, though, at times I felt the narrative to be a little uneven. I know, that seems to be a criticism I use often, but some parts of the novel did not move along as swiftly as the others. Despite that, Seed is an impressive debut and one that hopefully, signals more wonderful things to come from Rob Ziegler’s imaginative voice.

Continuing on his readthrough of classics, Mark had a look at two recently r-issues from the Golden Age of SF. The first of which is the story that gave us the term ‘robot,’ Karel Čapek’s RUR and War with the Newts

To be honest, RUR’s reputation beyond that of creating and using the word ‘robot’ is fairly unimpressive. What is interesting though is the fact that the robots in the play are not metal nor manufactured, as you would perhaps expect these days (and the cover rather misleadingly portrays), but are rather what we would these days call bio-engineered: that is, they are biological, created by biotechnology and, unlike R2-D2 or C-3PO, can be seen as human in appearance, even mistaken for human.

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Though the book is titled War with the Newts, most of it deals with how the Newts were first met, how they became servile to humans and what led to the war, which actually only take up the last thirty-five pages or so. However when it does happen the war is both sad and weirdly affecting in that such catastrophic events are recounted in such a matter-of-fact manner. The last two sentences of the novel describes what must have been a common feeling at the time of writing: “And then?” “...Then I don’t know what comes next.” (page 349.)

The other Golden Age classic is the story on which the various iterations of the film The Thing is based, Who Goes There by legendary SF editor John Campbell

First published in Astounding in August 1938 (yes, that long ago!) it is a tale of identity and survival in the Antarctic. Scientists and the military discover the body of an alien stranded there. At first assumed to be dead and buried in the ice for millions of years, the alien revives and, in its place of icy isolation, kills its enemy, taking the form of the dead human. The men on the base must kill it before it escapes to repopulate amongst the urban metropolises of Earth, but first they have to determine which one of them is the alien.
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Campbell was only 28 when Who Goes There? was published and it both impresses and reflects this. It is still rather pulpy in style and content, though more thoughtful than the ‘one-bound-and-he-was-free’ style of SF dominant at the time. Characters gasp rather than speak, bound when they could walk, and so on.

SFFWorld 2010 Year in Review Science Fiction

A few days ago, Mark put up the SF version of our Year in Review.


This year we did it a little differently since we posted it as a discussion topic in the forum, but nonetheless here it is if you haven't stopped by yet:

SFFWorld Review of the Year, Part 1 – SCIENCE FICTION

Don’t forget the Fantasy review and my own year in reading review

Bear, Hamilton, Willis - 3 SF reviews at SFFWorld

Things are trucking along at SFFWorld , with one of my reviews posted and two from Mark.


I’ll lead of with Mark’s review of the latest novel from Connie Willis - All Clear, which finishes off what she started in Blackout,:

After the cliff-hanger ending of the first part, we get straight back into the tale. There’s a little bit of reminding of what went before (note: do read the first book first!) but pretty soon we’re back into the WW2 dilemma of Polly, Mary, and Mike. This can be a little confusing if it’s been a while since you read Black Out: you really do need to read this as one continuous novel.

The complexities of the time travel element become a little more involved here as the apparent changes in Black Out have their effect. We now find that there is a great deal of slippage: over four years, when the longest previously was about six months. Mr Dunworthy finds himself entering the fray from 2060, Mary finds herself involved with an RAF officer, whilst Mike, in his search for Gerald Phipps, finds himself at Bletchley Park and intermixing with the mathematicians involved in the ultra-secret Enigma code-breaking project. There’s also the welcome return of a character from the beginning of Black Out who has a pivotal part to play in this tale.

My review, also finishes off a larger story, The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton:

Throughout the three volumes of the trilogy, Hamilton has juxtaposed two societies – the inhabitants of the Void who are of a medieval level society against those who live outside the void in the universe at large. The people outside the Void are divided and many of them find inspiration from one man’s dreams of the world inside the Void, specifically a young, powerful psychic by the name of Edeard, whom people have anointed the Waterwalker. A religious movement, The Living Dream, has arisen and is looking to make a pilgrimage to the inside of the Void. Problem being is the Void is expanding exponentially and threatening the integrity of the universe. In order to prevent the Living Dream from completing its pilgrimage and further endangering the universe, humanity has tried to prevent this religious cult, for lack of a better term, from completing their pilgrimage.

Hamilton continues to jump around the galaxy in his narratives, from Paula Myo’s investigative track, to Araminta’s storyline of continued discovery, to Edeards’ heroic journey of ascension in Makkathran, to the conflict between humans who have and have not chosen a post-physical existence. Through all of it, the most defined narrative for me was Edeard’s story. While Hamilton invested a great deal of time into many of characters, like Myo who has been bouncing around his books for thousands of years and pages, it is Edeard who comes across as the most clearly defined and genuine.

The last review of the day is also Mark’s s review is of a reissued recent classic by Greg Bear, The Forge of God

What these are in actual fact are two spaceships. In the case of the spacecraft crashing in the Californian Mojave desert, there is a dying alien, in its own words, ‘a flea’, hitchhiking a ride with superior beings. In English, it tells its discoverers that it is very sorry to bring bad news but that the Earth is doomed.

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The truth is sadly more sinister. What is happening is that the aliens, attracted by radio signals emitted from Earth, have brought with them two ‘bullets’ of neutronium and anti-neutronium that are eating through the interior of the Earth. Their meeting will be the end of the Earth as we know it. Moreover there is the scary realisation that this is deliberate: it is this that creates the matter used to birth more alien spaceships, a force created by a mechanical alien species who look at humans as if they are a lower lifeform. (Saberhagen’s Beserkers are mentioned as a sf-nal reference point.)

Reviews-Aaron, Barclay, Leiber, Newton

Another batch of reviews have appeared at SFFWorld over the past few days, two from Mark, one from me, and one from Art.

I’ll lead of with Mark’s review of the latest novel from James Barclay’s Elves: Once Walked with Gods:

For the uninitiated, the mere mention of the word ‘elves’ may bring up thoughts and images of Tolkien’s Legolas and a calm peaceful, thoughtful people. However, I won’t deceive people here. Frankly, James’ guerrilla group Elves, the TaiGethren, would have Legolas and his band of merry men and women for breakfast. Underneath the initial seemingly passive culture there are vicious, savage and downright nasty characters. And they are angry.
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As you might expect from James, the tale is presented with speed and with precision – no bloated account, this one – and there’s enough conspiratorial double dealing to keep the reader happy. And as previous readers might expect, James’ action scenes, of which there are many, are also very well done, fast moving and vivid. Elves are not afraid to use their nails and teeth when needed in combat!

My review, is of a book that received great acclaim upon its initial publication in the UK in 2009 - Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton:

Throughout the majority of the story, Newton straddles the line between genre tropes – from the murder mystery, to the sense of magic and non-human creatures, to lost technology, to royal families – it is pretty clear Newton had fun making this tasty stew of a novel. Like Vance and Wolfe before him, Newton uses the far future setting to great effect, blurring the lines between science and magic so much that they could be one and the same. The strange non-human creatures, which include garudas, winged birdmen who act as sentries for Villjamur; the aforementioned rumels, which seem to be a lizard-like people; and the Dawnir, seemingly godlike in their possession of all technological and arcane knowledge, serve to further give the story a sense of weird, fantastical otherworldliness.

Art ‘s review is of a classic book by a genre legend, Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber

Fritz Leiber wrote a book called Our Lady of Darkness in 1978 (it would go on to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel that year), and in 2010 Tor has reprinted it in trade paperback (it's also available as an ebook). It could be categorized under a variety of genres, including mystery, thriller, horror, dark fantasy and urban fantasy, but here is another category, one that is very close to my heart: it is a book about books.

Our Lady of Darkness is a gripping mystery filled with darkly fantastic elements, but what I love most about this book is how it serves as a tribute to the rich literary heritage of both the city of San Francisco – a mist-swirled "megapolis" rendered in a gothic beauty reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's London – and the horror fiction of Bierce, Smith, M.R. James, Arthur Machen, and H.P. Lovecraft, whose works are invoked as frames of reference throughout the novel.

Mark’s other review is of a debut novel, The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron

What is the winner for me here is the tale’s engaging tone. It’s light, fun and not particularly deep nor dark. It plays with the genre in a style that was reminiscent to me of early David Eddings. For many, that’ll be recommendation enough.

To the tale, then. Eli Monpress is an Errol Flynn type hero, a swordsman, renegade wizard and thief with the ability to talk to inanimate objects (that have once lived) and persuade them to do his bidding. This leads to his undoing at the beginning of the tale, but he manages to escape Allaze Prison faster than you can say ‘With one bound, he was free!’ Now rather bereft of funds, he then apparently kidnaps and holds for ransom Henrith, the King of Mellinor.

Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks Meme

We did this with the Science Fiction Masterworks and this Fantasy version was knacked specifically from the Mad Hatter. The standard instructions for memes like this is to bold books one has read, italicize books one owns but hasn't read yet, and strikethrough books one violently disagrees with.

1. The Book of the New Sun, Volume 1: Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe
2. Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany
3. The Worm Ouroboros - E.R. Eddison
4. Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance
5. Little, Big - John Crowley (I hated this book, but understand many, many people adore it)
6. The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
7. Viriconium - M. John Harrison (It isn’t so much that I didn’t like the book, I just felt very meh towards it and don’t get why it is held in such reverence)
8. The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle - Robert E. Howard (Read in the Del Rey reprints of the Wandering Star volumes)
9. The Land of Laughs - Jonathan Carroll
10. The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea - L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
11. Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
12. The Book of the New Sun, Volume 2: Sword and Citadel - Gene Wolfe
13. Fevre Dream - George R. R. Martin
14. Beauty - Sheri S. Tepper
15. The King of Elfland's Daughter - Lord Dunsany
16. The Conan Chronicles, Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (Read in the Del Rey reprints of the Wandering Star volumes)
17. Elric - Michael Moorcock (Read in both the SFBC omnibus and in the White Wolf Eternal Champion ominbus series)
18. The First Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber (Read in the SFBC omnibus edition The Three of Swords)
19. Riddle-Master - Patricia A. McKillip (Read in the Ace omnibus edition)
20. Time and Again - Jack Finney
21. Mistress of Mistresses - E.R. Eddison
22. Gloriana or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
23. The Well of the Unicorn - Fletcher Pratt
24. The Second Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
25. Voice of Our Shadow - Jonathan Carroll
26. The Emperor of Dreams - Clark Ashton Smith
27. Lyonesse I: Suldrun's Garden - Jack Vance
28. Peace - Gene Wolfe
29. The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
30. Corum: The Prince in the Scarlet Robe - Michael Moorcock (Read in the White Wolf Eternal Champion ominbus series)
31. Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams - C.L. Moore I read this in an old copy entitled Jirel of Joiry
32. The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson
33. The House on the Borderland and Other Novels - William Hope Hodgson
34. The Drawing of the Dark - Tim Powers (What’s not to love when a major plot element is beer!?)
35. Lyonesse II and III: The Green Pearl and Madouc - Jack Vance
36. The History of Runestaff - Michael Moorcock (Perhaps one of, if not my favorite incarnations of Moorcock’s Eternal Champions-Read in the Eternal Champion ominbus series)
37. A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay
38. Darker Than You Think - Jack Williamson
39. The Mabinogion - Evangeline Walton
40. Three Hearts & Three Lions - Poul Anderson
41. Grendel - John Gardner
42. The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick
43. WAS - Geoff Ryman
44. Song of Kali - Dan Simmons
45. Replay - Ken Grimwood
46. Sea Kings of Mars and Other Worldly Stories - Leigh Brackett
47. The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers
48. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip
49. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
50. The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales - Rudyard Kipling

SF Masterworks Meme

This meme has been making the rounds on teh intarwebby-blog-a-ma-jigs. What better way to keep a blog alive than a meme, especially when (a) it shows of some of your geek cred {or lack thereof} and (b) you aren't participating in the group blog from which this meme originates.

The standard instructions for memes like this is to bold books one has read, italicize books one owns but hasn't read yet, and strike through books one violently disagrees with.

The list:

I – Dune – Frank Herbert
II – The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
III – The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
IV – The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
V – A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
VI – Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
VII – The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
VIII – Ringworld – Larry Niven
IX – The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
X – The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham

1 – The Forever War – Joe Haldeman -- what, again?
2 – I Am Legend – Richard Matheson (IMHO, one of the best vampire novels ever, an utterly convincing vision of ironic terror)
3 – Cities in Flight – James Blish
4 – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
5 – The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
6 – Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delany
7 – Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
8 – The Fifth Head of Cerberus – Gene Wolfe
9 – Gateway – Frederik Pohl
10 – The Rediscovery of Man – Cordwainer Smith
11 – Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
12 – Earth Abides – George R. Stewart
13 – Martian Time-Slip – Philip K. Dick
14 – The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester
15 – Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner -- I don't think I finished it, so this may be cheating.
16 – The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le Guin
17 – The Drowned World – J. G. Ballard
18 – The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
19 – Emphyrio – Jack Vance
20 – A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick
21 – Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
22 – Behold the Man – Michael Moorcock
23 – The Book of Skulls – Robert Silverberg
24 – The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
25 – Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
26 – Ubik – Philip K. Dick
27 – Timescape – Gregory Benford
28 – More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
29 – Man Plus – Frederik Pohl
30 – A Case of Conscience – James Blish
31 – The Centauri Device – M. John Harrison
32 – Dr. Bloodmoney – Philip K. Dick
33 – Non-Stop – Brian Aldiss
34 – The Fountains of Paradise – Arthur C. Clarke
35 – Pavane – Keith Roberts
36 – Now Wait for Last Year – Philip K. Dick
37 – Nova – Samuel R. Delany
38 – The First Men in the Moon – H. G. Wells
39 – The City and the Stars – Arthur C. Clarke
40 – Blood Music – Greg Bear
41 – Jem – Frederik Pohl
42 – Bring the Jubilee – Ward Moore
43 – VALIS – Philip K. Dick
44 – The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
45 – The Complete Roderick – John Sladek
46 – Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
47 – The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells
48 – Grass – Sheri S. Tepper
49 – A Fall of Moondust – Arthur C. Clarke
50 – Eon – Greg Bear
51 – The Shrinking Man – Richard Matheson
52 – The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
53 – The Dancers at the End of Time – Michael Moorcock I've read the majority of Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories through the White Wolf editions and I thought this was, by leaps and bounds, the weakest of the bunch
54 – The Space Merchants – Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55 – Time Out of Joint – Philip K. Dick
56 – Downward to the Earth – Robert Silverberg
57 – The Simulacra – Philip K. Dick
58 – The Penultimate Truth – Philip K. Dick
59 – Dying Inside – Robert Silverberg
60 – Ringworld – Larry Niven
61 – The Child Garden – Geoff Ryman
62 – Mission of Gravity – Hal Clement
63 – A Maze of Death – Philip K. Dick
64 – Tau Zero – Poul Anderson
65 – Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke
66 – Life During Wartime – Lucius Shepard
67 – Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang – Kate Wilhelm
68 – Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69 – Dark Benediction – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 – Mockingbird – Walter Tevis
71 – Dune – Frank Herbert
72 – The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
73 – The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
74 – Inverted World – Christopher Priest
75 – Kurt Vonnegut – Cat’s Cradle
76 – H.G. Wells – The Island of Dr. Moreau
77 – Arthur C. Clarke – Childhood’s End
78 – H.G. Wells – The Time Machine
79 – Samuel R. Delany – Dhalgren I've tried on at least 3 or 4 occasions to read this book, never getting beyond the first 100 pages. I suppose I can understand that it holds a place in the genre, just not on my bookshelf
80 – Brian Aldiss – Helliconia
81 – H.G. Wells – Food of the Gods
82 – Jack Finney – The Body Snatchers
83 – Joanna Russ – The Female Man
84 – M.J. Engh – Arslan