Replaced by a wild land that approximates to the physical contours of old Europe, the new Old World is inhabited by flora and fauna totally different—usually repulsive and often deadly. In the United States, now effectively the only world superpower, the Miracle is taken by most people as evidence of Divine intervention—a strange miracle indeed. The new lands are nicknamed ‘Darwinia’ by the sensationalist Hearst press, as an ironic comment on the continent's apparent creation out of nothing, and its seeming lack of history or evolution. But the name sticks.
The first explorers and settlers begin to penetrate Darwinia. The (Woodrow) Wilson Doctrine is soon proclaimed, to keep Europe free from its old frontiers and national struggles (of course, all the inhabitants of Europe having vanished along with their countries). A rump British Empire, under Lord Kitchener in Canada, stands alone for a few years, until New London is bombarded by an American fleet and a compromise is reached. In 1920 the first serious expedition to systematically explore Darwinia sails down a very different Rhine. The expedition comes across a gigantic, ruined, and empty stone city in the foothills of the Alps.
So far Darwinia could give the impression of being little more than an enjoyable romp into yet another alternate world, even one with a ‘what if’ truly staggering in its unexplained occurrence and vivid in its depiction. And just when Darwinia does indeed seem to be consolidating into a heady mixture of Wells, The Lost World, Lovecraft, and Richard Dawkins, with its latter-day Lewis and Clarks, neo-Noachian geologists, and the occasional sceptic, other hints and strains begin to make themselves more clearly and darkly felt. Now there is evidence that everything that humanity thought it knew—right down to the foundations of its view of its place in the universe—is wrong. Wilson succeeds in creating a new world, and then completely sweeping away all the assumptions and possible fragments of assumptions that have been given as its basis since the Miracle. Darwinia evolves into a novel of a gigantic conceptual breakthrough, as the reasons for what has happened begin to become clearer, and a suitably cosmic explanation in the Stapledon or Baxter mould is gradually revealed. And there is also the human touch—the well-realised characters, both sympathetic and unsympathetic, all have their important parts to play, and are not merely bystanders or victims of the immense unfolding drama that is Darwinia.
Copyright © 2007 John Howard
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The Nail and the Oracle: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume XI
Theodore Sturgeon
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Are you still keeping up? It's been thirteen years and eleven volumes and still no end in sight. Even the prolific Philip K. Dick only filled five volumes. And with the previously unpublished stories that took up so much of the first couple of volumes (several of them illustrating that stories are often unpublished for a reason, and all of them proving that being the best short story writer in science fiction doesn't make every story you write a gem), it wouldn't be surprising if people failed to keep up with Sturgeon's Complete Stories.
So how are things doing now, with the volume that takes us through the 1960s? This was a strange time for Theodore Sturgeon, the era in which the Zeitgeist most closely matched his own liberal, liberated views, yet his glory days were already passed. Harlan Ellison, with whom Sturgeon stayed for some time in the sixties, reports that he had a penchant for answering the door naked, a quirk that even in the anything-goes sixties was rather frowned upon. One feels that the sexually free-and-easy stories that he wrote should have found a natural home, but they didn't. He wasn't even writing them: there are only twelve stories in this volume, written over the thirteen years from 1957 to 1970. The writer who should have been most attuned to the times doesn't seem to have been able to capture the moment in his fiction.
There is sexual liberation here. This is the volume that includes ‘If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?', his hymn to incest that was one of the best things in Ellison's Dangerous Visions. And he remains consistently non-judgemental on all things sexual. The only story in which one feels called upon to condemn a character is the crime story ‘Assault and Little Sister’ in which an ugly woman falsely accuses a man of assault in order to enjoy the attention it brings her. But beyond these, the majority of the stories are unadventurous in their attitude and often unadventurous in their writing.
There is a cowboy story, ‘Ride In, Ride Out’ (written with Don Ward), which follows exactly the pattern you expect: lone stranger rides into town, gets caught up in trouble, straps on his gunbelt, sorts out the trouble, rides out of town. It really is as clichéd as that makes it sound. And later in the volume there's ‘Jorry's Gap', about a disaffected youth going to the bad, which is exactly the sort of story you imagine parents shaking their heads over as they complain about the youth of today. If you encountered these on their own you certainly wouldn't imagine you were reading one of the great short story writers of the century.
Indeed, though the sf stories in this volume are better, they mostly don't live up to that reputation. ‘How To Forget Baseball’ and ‘It Was Nothing—Really’ are fun but not outstanding; ‘The Nail and the Oracle’ has a twist ending and a view of computers neither of which have stood the test of time. But there is one stand-out story here: ‘When You Care, When You Love', which was originally intended as the opening for a novel that, alas, never got written. Analyse the story and it seems commonplace: super-rich woman employs all her incredible resources to recover he dead lover. But the prose is glorious, the tone of voice is unique, and when you try to work out what writerly skill he has used to make it that good you just can't do it, all you can say in the end is that it really is that good. So at last we see exactly why Sturgeon has that reputation, and why it is worth persisting with this series.
Copyright © 2007 Paul Kincaid
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The Electric Church
Jeff Somers
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From the meanest streets of New York to the cheerless alleys of London, reputable Gunner for hire Avery Cates is squeezed between rock ‘n’ roll and a hard place, when caught by corrupt cops and blackmailed to assassinate Dennis Squalor—'Founder and chief prophet’ of the Electric Church, a priesthood of immortal cyborgs that are suspected of winning new converts by murdering them first. With psychic sidekick Kev Gatz and a hurriedly-assembled bunch of caper-ready experts, the swaggering Cates accepts the ‘impossible mission’ with his usual world-weary grimace (though his expression may result from an unhealthy habit of swilling illicit booze in horrible dives).
In the late 1980s, after Blade Runner and Neuromancer, too many hack writers and low-budget filmmakers tried and failed to imitate that classic movie or seminal novel, all and sundry wishing their copycat works would become the ‘next big thing’ in sf. Reading like something that fell from the fast-forward cyberpunk bandwagon, and that is finding publication rather belatedly, this dreadfully unimaginative début novel could be mistaken for a well preserved time-capsule exemplar from that era of derivative schlock.
Cates is a resolutely lowbrow action-hero stereotype, cured of all his backstory sins via cynically amoral lobotomy at the author's hand. Dialogue is risibly hackneyed at best, while descriptive and ‘dramatic’ parts of the trite and formulaic plot are equally stale. At times, its ordinariness is quite extraordinary. There are repeated warnings about aggressive police and the dangers of confronting them. “Fucking System Pigs, man. They were not to be fucked with.” In fact, nearly everything and almost everyone here is fucking, fucked, a fucker ('mother’ prefix optional), or just a fuck. There are prime examples of such unforgivably lazy writing on each page.
Allegedly a robot horror adventure, presumably intended as irony-free black comedy, The Electric Church remains depressingly inept on every level, even if considered as a muddled up collection of trash noir and sci-fi clichés for macho-bullshit junkies. After fifty pages the boredom becomes intolerable. After 100 page
s, sticking my fingers into the toaster while hoping for a power-cut seemed like it could be more fun than continuing to reading this book.
Did an editor at Orbit lose a bet about slush-pile manuscripts? How did this tripe get chosen for trade paperback? The standard of Somers's genre prose barely rises above that of the average vanity press or self-published print-on-demand stuff.
Copyright © 2007 Tony Lee
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The Metatemporal Detective
Michael Moorcock
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"What larks, eh, gentlemen!” So says the rather theatrical Mrs Una Persson, during a fleeting guest appearance at the conclusion of ‘The Mystery of the Texas Twister'. If she—and by implication, the story's author—is referring to ‘amusing adventures and escapades', then most of the stories brought together in this new collection are certainly that—playful and, at times, even mischievous!
Over the years Moorcock has occasionally written what can be best described as his own fond tribute to the pulp detective stories that he read as a boy. Originally seen in publications ranging from New Statesman & Society to McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, ten of these stories have now been brought together as The Metatemporal Detective, along with a new adventure which perfectly encapsulates why—despite their literary lineage—these tales are pure Michael Moorcock.
Moorcock has, of course, long played with the concept of a multiverse filled with alternative timelines and variations on characters and archetypes. Standing at the heart of this collection is Sir Seaton Begg, gentleman detective for hire—except, of course, when he's crime journalist Hank Beck or the cynical metatemporal investigator Sam Begg. For the most part, though, this Holmesian detective exists within an early twentieth century where the petrol-guzzling internal combustion engine never really took off as a concept, where cars are battery-powered and giant steam-driven airships remain the fastest form of international transport. Although this steam-punk world is, for the most part, delightfully brought to life by Moorcock, there are occasions when his writing is just too arch for its own good. And sadly the political ‘satire’ of the likes of ‘Texas Twister'—set in an independent Texas run by ‘King’ George Putz and his oil-soaked cronies—is little more than empty caricature.
Sir Seaton is also rather difficult to like; honourable, yes, and highly intelligent, but hardly sympathetic. It's only in ‘The Case of the Nazi Canary’ that his own moral compass becomes more than thin cardboard—when he explains to his genuinely horrified companion Dr ‘Taffy’ Sinclair that sometimes “it is just about possible for two wrongs to make a right."
Much more involving is Sir Seaton's regular nemesis, bête noir and distant cousin—the lean, long-haired albino generally referred to as Monsieur Zenith. He is, of course, a clear reflection of Michael Moorcock's most famous creation, Elric of Melniboné. Although invariably cast as the villain, at least according to Sir Seaton, the intriguing implication of this collection is that Monsieur Zenith simply operates within a higher, more complex morality; indeed, his actions at the finale are surprising, genuinely moving and yet entirely in keeping with what we've come to know about the man in the previous stories.
The final tale also makes clear the true focus of this collection—and it's not, despite what the cover blurb might say, simply a playful battle of wits between a Sherlock Holmes clone and his own Professor Moriarty. The Metatemporal Detective is ultimately an entertaining collection of stories exploring the eternal struggle between the forces of Order and Chaos—a subject at the heart of most of Moorcock's work—and the vital realisation that neither can be allowed to dominate if life of any kind is to survive.
Copyright © 2007 Paul F. Cockburn
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Halting State
Charles Stross
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Written entirely in the second person, Halting State immerses the reader in a traditional game of cat and mouse, played against the very untraditional backdrop of the world some ten years hence. It doesn't take long to become accustomed to Stross's second-person gambit. Emulating the game-playing environment in which it is set, Halting State proves that games have a way to go before they become as engrossing as the novel.
Following the points-of-view of Edinburgh Police Sergeant Sue Smith, geeky programmer Jack Reed and spreadsheet-slinging Elaine Barnaby, the novel lays out a very tidy little scenario in which a bank robbery that transpires in a virtual world has some serious real-world implications. Stross leavens this with a very agile wit and a generous sense of humour; Halting State is by no means a comedy, but it is very funny indeed, in a low-key, off-keel manner.
Stross creates a compelling cast of players and seems as adept with his women as he is with the men. Sue Smith is something of a rookie; she tends to keep her head low, her brogue high and her emotions bottled up. Jack Reed lays in a thick layer of post-noughties jaded jargon, of the sort that will have heavy-duty fans a-twitter. Elaine is equally technical, though her expertise is fiscal rather than computational. The second-person narrative technique might make them all sound the same, were it not for Stross's prose skills. The bottom line is that it's fun to step into anybody's shoes.
Stross himself has addressed the dangers of writing such near-future fiction. In ten years we'll know the shape of the world, and it may not much resemble that which Stross has painted. But Halting State isn't about predictions, it's very clearly—second-person narration clearly—about observations. Stross is a keen observer of his own social, political and technological milieus, and what he sees when he looks about him in the present is the future. In that sense, this is the perfect novel not just for the digerati, but for anyone who finds the present more and more incomprehensible. Strip away the future, and what you have left is three people trying to keep from getting chewed up and spit out by a world that doesn't seem to give a fig about their fates. You care, however. After all, each of them is you.
Copyright © 2007 Rick Kleffel
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The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, eds
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It's almost damning with faint praise to use the word ‘quirky', but it was Link and Grant who came up with the title, so in a way they were asking for it. They mention in the introduction that their magazine was named after a tattoo that Winston's mother had on her wrist. They don't mention that ol’ Winston was, like the magazine, the product of an American lady and a British gentleman. This cutely explains the title as well as the ‘special relationship’ that Winston shackled British foreign policy with. Winston's brother, however, was allegedly the son of an Austrian spy—but now we're digressing into research for conspiracy novels.
The magazine has been one of the delights of the American small press for a decade now, and, alongside such fellow travellers as Electric Velocipede, has been responsible for some of the finest fantasy writing around. This collection more or less follows the chronology of the magazine and includes many of the spoof articles that make it such a surreal and funny trip. Agony column, anyone? Pointless but entertaining lists are also scattered throughout the anthology. There are, of course, several real articles added to the mix as well, and sometimes the reader is a couple of paragraphs into something before he can work out what manner of beast it is.
Many of the stories are also blessed with a lightness of touch, and fine prose seems to be the defining characteristic that the editors have sought out. Some, such as Veronica Schanoes's ‘Serpents’ and Theodora Goss's ‘The Rapid Advance of Sorrow', are artfully written but almost impenetrable textually. Others take language as their starting point and run with it. Nalo Hopkinson's ‘Tan-Tan and Dry Bone’ creates a patois that seems ages old in its folk-tale familiarity. Tan-Tan is a young woman who is tricked into feeding the voracious and evil Dry Bone and has to find a way to free herself from him. Hopkinson stays true to the contract between rea
der and storyteller. Philip Raines and Harvey Welles almost wander into incomprehensibility in the astonishing ‘The Fishie’ but manage to dance with the language of a simple coastal community in a world that's not our own.
Other stories merely nod at strangeness on their way past. Jeffrey Ford deals up American nostalgia in ‘What's Sure To Come', where a small boy watches as the men around him warily bet on the premonitions of his grandmother. To acknowledge her ability to pick winning horses, however, would also involve having to acknowledge her ability to predict other, graver, things. There is magic in John Brown's frontier adventure as his clumsy backwoodsman circles around the ‘Bright Water’ woman of the title, but it is a slight sort of magic that can almost be ignored, and it is rendered impotent by the characters’ trajectories. And the final story, written as a modern fairy tale placed in a horror setting, is as fine a look at the potential of fiction as you will read anywhere; Cara Spindler and David Erik Nelson are to be commended for it.
Link and Grant also co-edit The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, and this seems to have set up a feedback loop of excellence. One way to get yourself noticed for TYBF&H is to submit your material to LCRW. Link and Grant can't lose. This is an enormously enjoyable collection, and if it were twenty percent shorter then it would be perfect. It'll cut the feet from under their back issues sales, but if there's any justice then it will multiply their subscriber base by at least an order of magnitude.
Copyright © 2007 Jim Steel
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Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #214 Page 19