Asimov's SF, December 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Department: ON BOOKS

  by Peter Heck

  BLOODSHOT

  By Cherie Priest

  Spectra, $15.00 (tp)

  ISBN: 978-0-345-52060-9

  Priest, who made the awards ballots last year with her steampunk-cum-zombies Boneshaker, tries another genre with this tale of a vampire who makes her living as a high-level thief who steals to order.

  The protagonist is Raylene Pendle, who became a vampire in the jazz age. As the novel opens, she is living in Seattle, staying largely out of the public eye and making excursions into the city only to ply her trade. The problem begins when she goes to the warehouse where she keeps her spare loot and finds that someone has broken in. She takes appropriate steps, then finds out she's in much deeper trouble than she originally thought. One of her business contacts puts her in touch with another vampire, this one a somewhat older male named Ian Stott, who is blind. He says he has been imprisoned and made an experimental subject by a rogue government agency, where he lost his sight. He asks her to help him find paperwork that may help a doctor cure him.

  But before she can even start the search, there is another break-in at her warehouse—this time by an armed team. That's a problem because Raylene's warehouse has two kids living in it—strays she's become somewhat protective of. Somebody is causing her more trouble than she likes, and she definitely doesn't want the kids caught up in it. After doing what she can to get the kids safe, Raylene goes on an odyssey to various parts of the country, checking on safe houses she has set up and following clues to the blind vampire's quest—which turns out to be connected with the break-ins.

  Along the way, we get looks at several rural and urban settings, with a lot of the climactic action taking place around Atlanta and Washington, DC. (Makes sense for something that's going to get pigeonholed as “urban fantasy” to spend some time in cities, right?) The different settings are all effectively portrayed, and each has a distinctive feel—hard to do effectively with just one city, but a real treat to see happening with several.

  The book is also very much an in-your-face defiance of convention. With the protagonist a thief, a very casual killer, and a vampire subsisting on human blood, it's no surprise that she has a somewhat unconventional attitude toward established society. But Priest ups the ante by making most of her sympathetic characters just as much outsiders as Raylene herself.

  The plot is interestingly complicated, and Raylene shows a nice combination of toughness and ingenuity—with a nicely dark sense of humor, for a bonus. The book ends with plenty of material laid on the table for one or more sequels, if Priest is so inclined. It'd definitely be fun to see them.

  * * * *

  KINGS OF THE NORTH

  By Elizabeth Moon Del Rey, $26.00 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-0-345-50875-1

  Moon continues her followup to “The Deed of Paksenarion,” a trilogy that first put her on the fantasy map two decades ago. In this second book of the new trilogy, which began with Oath of Fealty, Moon examines the careers of several of Paksenarion's companions. The main focus here is on two of them: Kieri Phelan, the new king of Lyona, and Dorrin, now Duke Verrakai, who after assuming her title has discovered her family's inhuman past as evil magicians.

  The previous volume showed the protagonists coming to terms with their new levels of responsibility. Now the powers of evil are beginning to show their hand, and the level of conflict has accordingly escalated. Kieri becomes aware of probing raids from the north, and eventually he is forced to journey north to meet a representative of that kingdom.

  Kieri has a couple of nagging internal problems, as well. First off, his kingdom is divided between human and elvish populations. Kieri's mother, the queen of the elvish half of his kingdom, is ignoring his attempts to enlist her in the running of the realm. Somewhat less critically, but definitely nagging, is that his people are clearly impatient for him to marry and start a family. Having tragically lost the love of his life, he is reluctant to plunge back into the marriage game.

  The answer to Kieri's marriage problem appears in an unexpected form—and it brings along its own series of complications and conflicts. The choice pits Kieri against his mother, who objects on grounds that seem irrational to the king, but that bear considerable weight to his chosen one, who decides to defuse the problem by absenting herself from the court. She flees in the direction of Verakkai, where Dorrin helps her find the right course of action.

  Meanwhile, Dorrin has rid her dukedom of the remnants of her ancestors, evil magicians who stopped at nothing to gain power. Now she has taken on a group of squires, sons and daughters of nobles in the capital city of Vérella, whose young king is her feudal lord. She welcomes their presence, because she has also assumed the obligation of raising a bunch of younger members of her family—who if she hadn't come along would almost certainly have fallen prey to her wizardly relatives. These relatives have perfected a way of inserting themselves into the body of another, either as a disguise or as a way to extend their lives past the normal range. She kills two birds with one stone by giving some of the babysitting chores to the squires.

  And in the midst of these domestic problems, the larger political situation suddenly shifts into emergency mode. The book ends with the broad lines of the conflict for the third volume clear, but the path to resolving that conflict is still to be revealed. It promises to be a rousing conclusion.

  Moon's fantasy world is enriched by the author's personal experience—as a Marine and a Texas rancher. She has considerable first-hand knowledge of the ways of military units and of life without an excess of high-tech comforts. This experience gives her work a depth of detail that many other writers lack.

  * * * *

  WEIGHT OF STONE

  By Laura Anne Gilman

  Gallery, $24.99 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4391-0145-2

  The second volume of Gilman's Vineart War builds on the world created in the first, in which magical power arises from the process of winemaking.

  The first volume of the series ended with Jerzy, an apprentice vineart or wine mage who has shown flashes of rare talent, and his companions, the trader Ao and Mahault, daughter of the maier of Allepan, taking to the road after Jerzy's mission to Allepan falls afoul of the church. Now the three have begun their quest for answers.

  There are a couple of problems. First of all, the all-powerful church is on their trail. The charges against Jerzy—essentially, dealing in forbidden magic—are enough reason to believe that the pursuit will not be perfunctory. But the bigger problem is an apparent breakdown of the magical order everyone has taken for granted. Sea monsters have been attacking coastal towns. Vinearts have been discovered dead among their vines—cause unknown, but likely some kind of hostile action. At the same time, they come into contact with Kainam, once heir to the rule of an island kindom in the southern seas. His country has also been affected by the strange new tides of magic, with his island home surrounded by a field of magical invisibility so as to isolate it from enemies. With his expert help, they take to the water, exploring several nations around the rim of a sea that bears considerable resemblance to the Mediterranean.

  They finally wind up in a country not even Ao has heard of, where they meet a vineart who seems hospitable—until the real masters of the country reveal themselves. Jerzy, who has been gradually finding out the true extent of his magical powers, is suddenly put to a harsher test, with survival the stakes.

  As is often true of second volumes of trilogies, this one spends a fair amount of time getting to know the full extent of the fantasy world; Gilman has created several societies that contrast nicely with the more conventionally “European” settings of the first book. We also see Jerzy, who rose from slave to apprentice vineart in the first book, getting a better idea just what he can do with his powers and what he's really up against.

  Gilman leaves the characters poised for the next challenges, and the reader curious to see what they will be. This series is an ambitious s
tep forward for Gilman.

  * * * *

  CRYOBURN

  By Lois McMaster Bujold

  Baen, $25.00 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-0162-6

  Here's the latest installment of Bujold's long-running chronicle of Miles Vorkosigan, whose career has evolved over several novels. At this point, he is an Imperial Auditor, something of a roving troubleshooter for his homeworld Barrayar, which has definite similarities to Czarist-era Russia.

  The Vorkosigan series, which has been Bujold's most popular contribution to the genre, is particularly interesting in the structure of the societies she portrays. Barrayar is at the same time a hereditary aristocracy and a meritocracy. Miles, who is hindered by small stature and the aftereffects of a crippling disease, almost certainly would not have gotten the opportunity to excel without the inherited privilege of being a Duke's son. On the other hand, he has risen to eminence largely because of his wits—an accomplishment that endears him to readers who more readily identify with the cerebral protagonist than with the muscular hero.

  The new story opens with Miles on Kibou-daini, where he's been sent as part of a team to investigate the local cryosleep industry. Drugged and kidnapped by parties unknown, he escapes to the catacombs. There he is rescued by a young boy, Jin, who turns out to be one of a group of squatters running an unofficial cryosleep facility outside the reach of the larger commercial firms. Jin, who tends a menagerie of stray animals, takes Miles under his wing while he recovers; meanwhile, a frantic search is underway for him by embassy officials.

  Miles decides to do some snooping, and figures out that the local system, in which someone entering cryosleep sells their voting rights to the company keeping them chilled, is a setup for massive corruption. The company then amasses an inordinate amount of political clout—and has no great incentive to let its clients wake up and start voting their own interests. Even more to the point, some opponents of the system have disappeared—most likely put into cryosleep against their will. One of these, evidently, is Jin's mother.

  After a bit of digging, Miles decides to send Jin to inform the Barrayaran consulate that he is safe, while he does some more research. The boy makes the trip with little difficulty, and delivers his message to the dumbfounded consul, who has been trying to figure out how to deal with a missing imperial legate. But complications arise on Jin's return. He ends up with unpleasant relatives that he'd run away from earlier and with his younger sister, who's developed her own taste for the fugitive life. Eventually, they join up with Miles, who decides that finding their mother is the first order of business.

  After a satisfying series of maneuvers in which Miles brings down the bad guys and leaves Jin in good hands, the book ends with a plot twist that will have significant implications for any new books in the series. It will be extremely interesting to see what Bujold does with future Miles adventures. Stay tuned.

  * * * *

  DEEP FUTURE: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth

  By Curt Stager

  Thomas Dunne, St. Martin's, $25.99 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-0-316-61462-1

  Stager, who teaches paleoecology at Paul Smith College in upstate New York, offers a long-range view of global climate change. Given that most popular discussions of the subject don't look beyond the next generation, it's good to see someone discussing what happens farther down the road. A particular bonus is his awareness of past warming episodes, notably the Eemian interglacial, one hundred and thirty thousand years ago, which lets him put the discussion in a perspective few meteorologists could bring to the subject.

  The geological time scale is relevant in that most of the carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels is here to stay. While some of it will be broken down by photosynthetic plants, the majority will be around thousands, if not tens of thousands of years from now—and the effects will occur on an equally long scale. Ice sheet collapse and sea level rise will take place over decades, if not centuries. This is the real scope of these phenomena, unrecognized by climate change deniers who respond to a couple of inches of snow with smug remarks about Al Gore.

  Stager examines both moderate and extreme scenarios, depending on the degree of carbon release. This adds a degree of subtlety to the discussion, once again an element generally lacking in popular treatments of climate change. Stager also recognizes that different latitudes will feel the results of warming unequally. As some regions become drier, others may experience more rainfall. The impact may even be largely benign in some regions. For example, Greenland is likely to become a temperate climate, while much of lowland Europe fights rising sea levels.

  Although a lot of the discussion by other writers has focused on polar icecaps, tropical climates will feel the impact of warming, too. Human populations in equatorial areas will be put under extra pressure from higher temperatures. Desertification is likely in some areas; in others, tropical diseases may make a comeback after long absences; there have already been cases of dengue fever in areas where it had long been thought eradicated. Malaria, long absent from the U.S. except in travelers returning from the tropics, may also make a comeback here as mosquito-friendly environments expand.

  Warming isn't the only long-term issue: acidification of the oceans, a chemical reaction caused by dissolved carbon dioxide, is likely to harm many aquatic species, especially shellfish. On land, many species survived past episodes of climate change by moving north (or to higher altitudes). But in the built-up world of today, plants and animals looking for cooler climates are likely to be blocked by the human settlements in their way. For many, this will spell extinction.

  Another point frequently overlooked is that we humans aren't just faced with a carbon-no carbon decision. We have the ability to moderate the release of carbon, shaping the long-range impact on climate. While we won't be able to prevent significant global warming in the next few centuries, those who take the long view should recognize that cutting carbon emissions now can preserve our options for a future era. Saving some coal for a future millennium could give our descendents the means to prevent another ice age—a global disaster every bit as threatening to the human race as the results of warming.

  Stager consistently pushes his conclusions not just to the next generation, but far down the road of consequences. So he looks at the warming of Greenland, with its likely development into an agricultural and fishing economy. Next he looks past that warming to the recooling that will follow, and the inevitable consequences that cooling has for a population that may have no memory of the ice-bound island their forbears knew.

  It's refreshing to see someone actually looking past today's balance sheet to calculate the long-term cost of carbon emissions. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to see the real impact of our continued reliance on fossil fuels.

  Copyright © 2011 by Peter Heck

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR

  by Erwin S. Strauss

  The third weekend in October has three good bets for Asimovians: AlbaCon (where I'll be), NecronomiCon and MileHiCon—plus Arcana, if you're into horror. CapClave's good the week before (I'm there, too). Plan now for social weekends with your favorite SF authors, editors, artists, and fellow fans. For an explanation of con(vention)s, a sample of SF folksongs, and info on fanzines and clubs, send me an SASE (self-addressed, stamped #10 [business] envelope) at 10 Hill #22-L, Newark NJ 07102. The hot line is (973) 242-5999. If a machine answers (with a list of the week's cons), leave a message and I'll call back on my nickel. When writing cons, send an SASE. For free listings, tell me of your con five months out. Look for me at cons behind the Filthy Pierre badge, playing a musical keyboard. —Erwin S. Strauss

  OCTOBER 2011

  6-9—Sirens. For info, write: Box 149, Sedalia CA 80135. Or phone: (973) 242-5999 (10 am to 10 pm, not collect). (Web) sirensconference.org. (E-mail) help@sirensconference.org. Con will be held in: Vail CO (if city omitted, same as in address) at the C
ascade Resort. Guests will include: Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor, Laini Taylor. Theme: Women in Fantasy Literature.

  7-9—AkiCon. akicon.org. info@akicon.org. Hilton, Bellevue WA. Kyle Herbert, Velocity Demos, NDP Comics. Anime.

  9-12—Spain Nat'l. Con. hispacon2010.blogspot.com. Burjassot, Spain. Many guests. Spanish-language SF, fantasy and horror.

  14-16—Another Anime Con. anotheranimecon.com. lisa@anotheranimecon.com. Nashua NH.

  14-16—CapClave. capclave.org. Hilton, Gaithersburg MD. C. Vaughn, C. Valente. “Where reading is not extinct.” Written SF/fantasy.

  20-23—BakuretsuCon, Box 5342, Essex Jct. VT 05453. bakuretsucon.org. Hampton Inn, Colchester VT. G. and C. Ayres. Anime.

  21-23—AlbaCon, Box 2085, Albany NY 12220. albacon.org. Best Western Sovereign. J. Kessler, S. Hickman, K. Decandido, Wombat.

  21-23—MileHiCon, Box 487, Westminster CO 80036. milehicon.org. Hyatt Tech Center, Denver CO. V. Vinge, Cook, Dozois, Mather.

  21-23—NecronomiCon, 5902 Thontosassa Rd., Plant City FL 33565. stonehill.org. Hilton Bayfront, St. Petersburg FL. Ben Bova.

  21-23—Arcana, Box 8036, Minneapolis MN 55408. arcanacon.com. Best Western Bandana Square, St. Paul MN. The Dark Fantastic.

  21-23—Browncoat Ball. browncoatball.com. Providence RI. “A Mighty Fine Shindig.” For fans of Firefly and Serenity.

  27-30—World Fantasy Con. wfc2011.org. Town & Country Resort, San Diego CA. Gaiman, Godwin. Sailing the Sea of Imagination.

  28-30—ICon, 308 E. Burlington, #300, Iowa City IA 52240. iowa-icon.com. Marriott, Cedar Rapids IA. Jane Yolen, Steve Thomas.

  29—Goblins & Gears Masquerade Ball. teamwench.org. Michael's Eighth Avenue, Glen Burnie (Baltimore) MD. Horror and steampunk.

  NOVEMBER 2011

  3-6—IlluXCon. illuxcon.com. Ramada Inn and Conference Center, Altoona PA. Fantastic illustration art.

  4-6—ConTraflow, Box 57927, New Orleans LA 70157. contraflowscifi.org. Clarion Westbank. General SF and fantasy convention.

  4-6—NekoCon, Box 7568, Roanoke VA 24019. nekocon.com. Hampton Roads VA. Anime and steampunk.