Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth - Wolfbane

Many years ago, I read, and re-read, Pohl and Kornbluth's classic novel The Space Merchants. It was a remarkable novel that has stuck with me for many years. For some reason though I never moved on to other works by the pair and having finally read Wolfbane, a novel first published in 1952, I really regret that delay.

By any standards Wolfbane is a remarkable book. It is set on a vastly depopulated Earth which has been stolen from the solar system by pyramid aliens who dimly illuminate the planet with an artificial sun that gradually diminishes. The aliens live on their own planet also orbiting their miniature sun, though they are apparently ignorant of the difficult lives of those that remain on Earth. The humans that remain, descendants of those who survived the enormous crisis that followed the planet's removal from solar orbit, have succumbed to a passive existence based on tightly controlled rituals, strictly regulated social interactions and a lack of emotional engagement with others.

In this strictly controlled atmosphere many individuals appear to go insane, or rogue. Known as Wolves they are punished by execution, but they consider themselves to be far superior to the ritualised sheep. The Wolf at the centre of the novel, Glen Tropile, manages to break out of his imprisonment following his discovery. Fleeing, he in turn finds a community of wolves who are living a superior lifestyle under the alien's radar and those of the rest of humanity - here is more food, technology and a better society. But this is in turn disturbed by Glen's capture and translocation by an alien to the Pyramid's homeworld. Here Tropile leads an unusual revolution. He is reincarnated as a component part of a collective being, one of thousands that help maintain the alien planet. The rebellion that he/their lead is a remarkably written account that seems to predict future networked technologies and, perhaps, some of the cyberpunk genre.

For a novel written over 60 years ago, this is still incredibly fresh. It has interesting things to say about society, rebellion and environmental disaster, as well as an innovative plot. I'd highly recommend it.

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Jack London - The Star Rover

From the author of White Fang and The Call of the Wild, this is an unusual and fascinating science fiction novel that is now quite dated in some of its language, but is an important milestone, itself was probably influenced by works such as H.G. Well's The Time Machine.

First published in 1915 The Star Rover is an account by Darrell Standing, a professor of agriculture who is imprisoned for killing a rival for the affections of the woman he loved. In prison, a convoluted story ends up with Standing being accused of bringing in a quantity of dynamite which he supposedly plans to use for a mass breakout. The dynamite doesn't exist, but in order to torture him into confessing the dynamite's hiding place, Standing is put into isolation and subjected to increasing time in a strait-jacket. There, he learns, via communications with other inmates (made by tapping the plumbing) how to shut his body down, until he enters a trance like state. In this state he is able to travel in time and space, and experience the lives of countless other men from the stone age through medieval France and Korea to the American West.

These unconnected stories are well written historical accounts. In them, Standing experiences unusual lives - a castaway on a deserted island who survives for eight years collecting rainwater in containers carved from rock, a superb duellist, a military commander in Korea who falls from grace and spends a lifetime seeking revenge, and a young boy at the 1857 Mountain Meadow's massacre of a wagon train by the Mormons. I kept expecting these stories to be making a particular point, but they don't really come together. At the end of the novel, facing execution, Standing seems to suggest that the lesson he has learnt is that history is driven by the love of man for woman. He points to his memories of helping to invent the bow and arrow to impress his partner during stone age times and agriculture appears to have been developed for similar reasons.

The book makes it clear that these are real events. Standing learns things, from his historical and other out of body experiences that he could not have known. But all together he simply takes from his knowledge that "there is no death. Life is spirit and spirit cannot die". It's an unsatisfying end to the novel, but one that perhaps fit the early 20th century better than more modern tales - the reader can find his or her own morality tale. It is dated though. In places the language (I'm thinking particularly of the section on Korea) is quite racist by today's standards and the work is overly philosophical, as Standing meditates on life, love and society.

Towards the end, as Standing faces execution, some of London's socialist politics come through a little as he rails against the death penalty. But other than a fascination with foreign places and distant times, there's little here that gives the reader a sense that London's was a important radical activist. While it's not a great novel, it is very unusual and is undoubtedly one that will have inspired later writers. Worth getting hold of if you are interested in the development of the science-fiction genre.

Philip Pullman - La Belle Sauvage

I still remember the Christmas that I first read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series - a mad rush to the bookshop before it closed on Christmas Eve to make sure that I had the final volume before the holidays began. The trilogy is probably one of the best young adult series ever written and I shall never tire of recommending them. La Belle Sauvage is the first volume of a new trilogy - this one set a decade or so before the start of the original books and serves as both an origin story of Lyra Belacqua the hero of those stories and as a further fleshing out of the parallel Earth that they are set on.

But it is also a bloody good read. We have two new heroes and their daemons, Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon, Asta, who live with his parents in their Oxford pub and Alice, a few years older than Malcolm and in her grumpy rudeness she presents a neat foil to the honest and soft spoken Malcolm. Thrown together by chance and the need to protect the baby Lyra, these two go on an epic journey and their relationship is transformed. It's an exciting adventure with some classic evil characters and organisations each trying to stop the children and capture Lyra. But I was struck by how wonderful Malcolm and Alice were written. Alice in particular is a brilliantly portrayed young woman, simultaneously confident and wary, angry and loving. Both of them are resourceful in a way that I imagine most young adult readers would like to be, and yet their mission nearly comes apart under the pressure of their enemies, the nature and the more fantastical elements of their world.

Pullman fleshes out a lot here too. For fans of the original series he answers some questions about the relationship between humans and their daemons though, to a slight extent, I thought he ret-conned a few details here and there. It is a fast passed novel though and it would be easier to miss some of Pullman's deeper musings on spirit and soul. As previously religion plays a major role, here the equivalent of the Catholic Church forming a powerful anti-democratic force in society. In some brilliantly written scenes that send a chill through the reader's spine school children are encouraged to inform on adults who don't conform to the Church's needs. Parents and teachers are sent to "reeducation camps" as a doctrine and personal settling of scores is used viciously by some of the children. This was one of several genuinely tense and frightening parts of the book.

The problem with returning to an existing fantasy world for an author is that its hard to recreate that sense of wonder and excitement the reader gets from learning about its differences and its similarities. But if La Belle Sauvage is not as brilliant as the books in the Dark Materials series, its' mostly because they were such amazing works. Again, highly recommended.

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Leo Carew - The Wolf

The popularity of George RR Martin's series has given a new lease of life to the fantasy novels that focus on the interactions of groups and indivduals rather than simply following a diverse group of characters on a quest to destroy a ring/sword/amulet. These books have at their heart machinations and intrigue, and like the court of Henry VIII, violence, betrayal and romance are more common than magic and battle.

Leo Carew's debut novel The Wolf is clearly aimed at fans of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. It deals with a fantasy feudal version of the British Isles, where the northen part of the country is the realm of the Anakim, a fearless warrior race, taller and stronger than humans whose bones form near impenetrable armour. To their south are more anatomically modern humans the Sutherns, whose short lives contrast with the centuries lived by the Anakim. The two races have competed militarily for decades and the book opens with the latest in a long line of bloddy battles where the Anakim's Dark Lord is killed and his son, Roper, comes to a tenuous power.

Much of the book deals with Roper's attempts to strengthen his position in the face of more experienced and stronger contenders for the throne. He manages to play of various forces against each other, and prove himself in battle. While these political intrigues were well thought through at times they lacked depth and believability - I simply failed to believe that Roper would have escaped assassination or murder of the battle field. Roper's marrage of convenience to the daughter of one of his allies brings a rare female character into the story - though their relationship is woodenly described. But Leo Carew has at least tried to include a lot of strong female characters even if they are peripheral to the main action.

The reader is clearly meant to identify with the Anakim rather than the short-lived Sutherners who repeatedly invade their lands. There's less detail about their lives and intrigues, though one, Bellamus comes across as marginally less nasty than the others simply because he takes the time to try and understand his enemy. Bellamus' skills at war-craft and his blunt interpersonal skills seem modelled on Jon Snow from Martin's books. Sadly Bellamus' back story and his courtly intrigue really didn't work.

While the book is very readable, and the battle scenes in particularly are extremely well described, the political machinations are too black and white. Roper is too good and his Anakim enemies too bad, as are all the Suthern opponents to make it seem real enough. While entertaining I was unsatisfied by the novel though I will return to the sequels to find out what happens next.

James S.A. Corey - Abaddon's Gate

As with its predecesor, volume three of James S.A. Corey's Expanse Series begins almost immediately after the end of the previous novel. The various factions of humanity that are spread through the solar system have launched fleets towards the alien ring structure that has been constructed at the edge of the solar system. These fleets vary from highly powered military craft to smaller vessels with religious and cultural figures in case of first contact.

Jim Holden and his crew who were at the centre of the first two books are pointedly not on their way to the ring, until a suspicious combination of events forces them to join the fleet where they are suddenly thrust into prominence, and simultaneously through the ring.

I'm beginning to understand the popularity of these novels. They feel like well written space soap operas. Characters come and go, plots build to climax and then vanish leaving a blank slate for the next book. Sometimes characters return, but usually there is a great cleansing that removes many of the second tier characters for the next episode. All the key characters remain in place ready to be re-used in the future. This book resolves some outstanding questions about the aliens, but creates many more and leaves them unanswered.

If this sounds like a criticism, it isn't. Abaddon's Gate and its prequels are not great literature, but I don't think the two experienced writers behind the Corey pseudonym intend it to be. If you like science fiction on a grand scale and some intensely described action scenes, as well as a plot line that is clearly worked out on the hoof, then The Expanse will be your cup of tea.

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Joe Haldeman - All My Sins Remembered

***Spoilers***

Joe Haldeman served two tours in Vietnam as a US combat engineer, where he was severely injured. It is probably fair to say that his experiences hang heavy over his novels, particularly Forever War which was rejected by numerous publishers in the 1970s, none of whom thought a science fiction retelling of Vietnam would sell. It did, and remains one of the most magnificent novels to come out of that war.

The title of All My Sins Remembered might be seen as an illusion to Hademan's own combat experiences. Certainly it is a book that deals with how extreme experiences can shape people and destroy them. The hero Otto McGavin is an operative for a shadowy organisation, the Confederación, that claims to keep the peace in the galaxy. Otto's speciality is that he can take on the personality and the body of others, allowing him to infiltrate enemies as a perfect spy. He comes to the Confederación a Buddist, firmly believing in the organisations' Charter that will protect the galaxy's inhabitants. The truth is much harsher. Agents are needed to investigate crimes, rob the innocent, fan the flames of rebellion or murder politicians and a host of other dirty tricks.

Through a series of connected short stories we follow Otto as he investigates the disappearances of some fellow agents, attempts to stop a interplanetary war and infiltrates a shady religious organisation that is attempting to find out a secret from an endangered alien species that can seemingly move planets at will.

It's not a complex novel, but its well and tightly written - there's more than a few contemporary science fiction authors who could learn from Haldeman's ability to describe the terrors of a alien jungle at night in a short few paragraphs. But Haldeman also manages to add into this an amusing tale of how a group of idealistic Communist settlers fell foul of the jungle's monsters and create a contempoary network of feudal states in cities around their stranded spacecraft.

Between each mission Otto is interviewed by his handlers, who are clearly growing concerned by his post traumatic stress. The ending is brutally abrupt, with a very subtle twist, and is an interesting metaphor for how states use and abuse their footsoldiers. Otto's idealistic hopes of serving the greater good of the galaxy are, of course, dashed. His organisation existed to serve itself, not anyone else. While hospitalised after a mission Otto muses to himself on becoming a cog in a machine: "You can posit and argue and posit and argue, but if the Confederación asked you to unplug yourself from that machine and die, you unplug yourself and die, if you could move your arms."

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Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop

*Warning Spoilers*

Brian Aldiss' Non-Stop is a extraordinarily fine science fiction novel that has barely dated since its initial publication in 1958. Since reading it I've discovered that it's subject matter - a generation star ship - was not uncommon at the time, and others had written similar stories. But few of those have the fame, or the lasting power of this book. The book is centered on Roy Complain, a hunter in the Greene tribe. It should spoil no future readers to know that his tribe appears to be all that is left of the humans on board a generation ship whose social order has broken down.

Roy is self-centered, rude and rebellious against the strict rules of the Greene tribe and, facing social demotion following the death of his wife, he leaves the safety of the tribe to explore the space-ship with a small band. Leading this group is the priest Marapper who has dreams of power and, having worked out the nature of their confinement, hopes to map it to the command centre and become the ruler of the ship.

The story follows the group as they explore and discover the reality of the ship. Aldiss tells a sparse story. His descriptions aren't detail, but allow the reader to fill in the gaps. It's probably for this reason that the book hasn't dated anywhere near as much as some 1950s novels. Only in a few places did I notice anachronistic technology described as though it was from the amazing future.

But the real story here is how the regression of a large group of people cope with their interaction with a highly technological environment. Aldiss paints a wonderful world where the ship's flora and fauna has got out of control, and where a hunter-gatherer community can survive by harvesting plants, hunting dogs and cannibalising what they find in locked rooms from their ancestors. Rather unwittingly Roy finds himself at the heart of a revolutionary movement against the ship's rulers, though he seems to be doing this mostly because he is attracted a woman he encounters. Unusually for a novel of this era, and fair-play to Aldiss, I was struck by the positive portraits of women. Roy's misogyny and that of the society he comes from causes some interesting clashes in his explorations.

It's a classic novel that no connoisseur of science fiction should fail to read.

Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic

Beginning with an intriguing idea, this is a complex novel that will repay reading for a second time I suspect. It is set in the future, probably in the US, in a world transformed by a visitation by aliens. But, frustratingly for humankind, the aliens made no contact and left a series of zones which have been radically transformed in ways that humans simply cannot understand. The areas are rich with alien artefacts, some of which of marvels like unlimited power or potential weapons. But they are protected by, often invisible, threats that kill or maim those seeking to find these alien treasures. Frustratingly it is not apparent to explorers and scientists whether these threats are deliberate protections or other random leavings by the alien visitors.

A whole industry, official and unofficial, has developed around these zones. Scientists are desperate for more information and more artefacts. Other, less scrupulous, forces want to get their hands on the treasure for profit and power. The official expeditions into the zones are mirrored by illegal trips by "stalkers". One of these stalkers, Red Schuhart, has a dual life foraging the zone for illegal and legal purposes. Like many who lived near a zone during the visitation, his family has suffered as a result - unknown forces have mutated his daughter, and friends and other stalkers have died. He drowns his sorrow in alcohol, but he cannot escape the zone, returning again and again, in the hope of understanding its secrets and possibly finding salvation for his family.

The point of the book, however, is that no one can understand the zones, humans can only gain superficial knowledge and use from the alien leavings. The title derives from a analogy used by one of the scientists. The visitation was like a picnic visit to a field by a human party. They leave behind scraps of food and broken toys, radios or trinkets. These are incomprehensible to the insects and animals that live in the field, but are understood as wondrous creations. The humans finish their picnic and leave, not stopping to comprehend the impact on the roadside inhabitants.

The concept is clever, and was clever enough to encourage at least one successful film 1979's Stalker directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and with a screen play by the Strugatsky brothers. Its also been widely translated and my edition from the SF Masterworks series has a great introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin and an afterword by Boris Strugatsky that looks at the tortuous publication history in the former USSR. The book isn't simply a critique (or commentary) on the old Soviet regime, though there are clear elements to that, not least in Red's final demand. But it certainly has elements of a critique of a commodity obsessed society that appears to be set in 1950s America. Many of the objects found, as Le Guin, points out might be being misused by their human scientists. For all their successful applications are humans using "Geiger counters as hand axes"?

A clever story with a brilliant setting, I feel that Roadside Picnic will improve with a second and third reading. It's not quite as good as the Strugatsky's Hard to be a God but it comes recommended.

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Stephen King - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Long term readers of this my reviews will know that I have a great love for much of Stephen King's work and particularly his Dark Tower books. Nearly four years after finishing that epic series I was finally able to return to them by reading The Wind Through the Keyhole a novel set between volumes four and five of the original series. The novel adds little to the actual series, but adds a great deal to the backstory of the Gunslinger and his companions. It also builds on the wider history of the world they inhabit.

Sheltering from a stark-blast, an enormously powerful storm that drops temperatures to freezing and shatters wood with high-speed winds, the Gunslinger is reminded of a story his mother used to tell him. As his companions huddle around a fire, he tells them the story of how he first retold that tale, and thus we are treated to a story within a story. The Gunslinger tells us of his adventures that took place after those described in the forth volume Wizard and Glass. They deal with a mission he is sent on to kill a skin-man, a shape-shifting creature that has been massacring the population of a small mining village near to Roland's home.

During an over-night shelter there, Roland tells tells a nervous witness to a massacre the story that his mother had told him, of a small boys adventure that leads him to become a Gunslinger. Readers hoping to find answers to the great mysteries of the other novels will be disappointed. The book contains little of that, though it does tie up some loose ends and certainly gave this reader a sense of a deeper knowledge of Roland's world and his motivation. Telling more would ruin much for future readers, so I'll leave it there, except to recommend the Dark Tower series once again to those who haven't read them.

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Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana

Having recently enjoyed Guy Gavriel Kay's Children of Earth and Sky I took Tigana from the library to read on a brief holiday. Sadly I was not as enamoured by this novel whose bulk became a hindrance rather than representing a satisfyingly detailed plot.

The Tigana of the title is a conquered nation. It's destruction has been so complete that the sorcery of its new dictator has ensured that no one can even hear its name. Tigana, now known a Lower Corte, is but one of a number of tiny states on the peninsula that forms the geographical backdrop for the story. Clearly based (as in Children of Earth and Sky, the map is barely disguised) on medieval Italy, the region is made up of a variety of city states and small countries vying with each other. But geo-politics are dominated by two competing magical warlords. Brandin, who destroyed Tigana and Alberico, his sworn enemy.

The story focuses on two areas. The first is the tale of a growing rebellion led by a small group of rebels to free Tigana, through killing the tyrant Brandin. The problem is that if only Brandin is killed, Alberico will simply take over. So freedom means destroying two enemy states. The second focus of the novel is events in Brandin's court where a woman from Tigana arrives as a concubine with the intention of killing Brandin, but eventually falls in love with him.

Unlike a lot of historical fantasy these characters are morally ambiguous and fairly well rounded, even if the vast number of them can be confusing. Brandin might be a fearful and violent tyrant, but he has his loving side too, causing his would be assassin enormous confusion. The rebels themselves are prepared to use any means necessary to further their cause, but their plan to free their homeland requires years of planning (and not a few nearly unbelievable coincidences).

Tigana is a complex novel. This, for me, was its major difficulty. There's simply too many characters, too much convoluted plot, and a few too many coincidences. I can't recommend it, despite enjoying Kay's book Children of Earth and Sky.

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Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash

Snow Crash is one of the great works of science fiction that came out in the run up to the millennium. Alongside writers like William Gibson, Neal Stephenson pushed new boundaries that saw the potential for new technologies like virtual reality, but also recognised that society limited how those technologies would be used.

Snow Crash is notable for putting virtual reality at the heart of the story, and in some ways it probably works better now than it did in 1992. 25 years ago did anyone really think that it would be possible to enter a virtual world on your computer while travelling at high-speed along a motorway?

The brilliantly named Hiro Protagonist is sacked from his job delivering pizzas right at the start of the book. He's a hacker extraordinaire and quickly becomes involved in a complicated plot involving a corporate Mafia, a computer virus that can kill in the real world, and the interests of an extraordinarily rich private church. The characters are all larger than life and many of them poke fun at particular sub-cultures. The 15 year old Y.T. who is a kourier using her skateboard to surf through traffic via grappling hooks is brilliant. But even the minor characters, like the US President that everyone ignores, are well done.

The plot races along, in fact there are several dramatic chase scenes as Hiro and Y.T. try to get to the bottom of what is happening.

Despite being published in 1992 this dark comic novel of hacking and virtual reality set against a backdrop of a disintegrated United States has aged extremely well. In part that is because Stephenson doesn't spell out in to much detail the technology of the time. Technology has a way of developing far quicker than authors imagine and too much science fiction is blighted by characters using technology that sounded futuristic when it was written, but dated five years later. In fact the most fantastic technology in Snow Crash is the wonderful adaptive wheeled skateboard that Y.T. uses; and that's because its actually unworkable.

But what really makes the novel work today is that the trends that Stephenson has bigged up for comic effect in 1992 still seem eerily real. A United States were the Mafia have achieved corporate power and Fast Food delivery has become something done by low paid couriers racing against the clock, risking death as they go, doesn't seem that far off. The coding factory that Y.T's mum works in, where managers monitor every mouse click and time taken to read an email might have seemed like a dystopian future in the 1990s, yet today it's reality for millions of workers.

Snow Crash is a classic novel that retains much of its punch over a quarter of a century after its initial publication, but in someways seems even more relevant today. It would be churlish to compare this with Stephenson's absolutely superb Baroque Cycle, as they are completely different books, so whether or not you liked those as much as I did, you should try Snow Crash.

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Guy Gavriel Kay - Children of Earth and Sky

Having picked up Children of Earth and Sky on a whim in the library, I was extremely taken by Guy Gavriel Kay's writing. This sweeping alternative history is well written, engaging and doesn't suffer at all from the common fantasy troops that bedevil so much writing in the genre. In fact there is very little fantasy at all - some characters can talk to dead relatives, who advise, protect and seem to operate as a sort of sixth sense. But there is are no spells, teleportation or magical swords.

It took me a while to realise, that the obligatory map at the front is a lightly concealed plan of the eastern Mediterranean, and indeed the book is set mostly in what is now Croatia in the later medieval era. It deals with the clashes between city states of our Italy (principally a very thinly disguised Venice, called Seressa) and the Asharia empires to their east. While religious practice is completely different in Kay's world, the beliefs of the characters are analogous to Christian and Islam.

The characters are well rounded, believable and entertaining. I was particularly taken by Danica Gradek, a young woman archer who is determined to avenge her brother's kidnap by Asharia raiding parties. But the plot hinges on the mission of a young, and distinctly naive painter,  Pero Villani, who is travelling from Seressa to paint the Grand Khalif of the Asharias in the western style.

The author sets things up well for a thrilling denouncement, but there are several thoroughly enjoyable subplots and story arcs, as well as some brilliant characters. The lightness of the fantasy makes this more an alternative history, and I am already looking forward to returning to the author's writing.

Josiah Bancroft - Senlin Ascends

I really liked the beginning of this unusual fantasy novel. Newly wed teacher Thomas Senlin arrives at the Tower of Babel with his wife for their honeymoon. Babel has long held Senlin's imagination back in his far off, small village were he teaches his students science, economics, history and politics using Babel as an example. Senlin is no action hero. He's clumsy, unsure and easily startled. The embodiment of what we might called the Enlightenment he clearly believes that the world would be better if only everyone understood the rules behind it all. Disappointingly for Senlin, the local workers, peasants and craftsmen are not particularly interested in his scientific explanations as they do little to help them with their lives.

Such abstract knowledge is Senlin's biggest problem at the start of the novel. Because Babel is very different to the image that he has created in his head. At ground level its markets are a seething mass of humanity, few of whom care for outsiders other than as people to be fleeced. Immediately on arrival Senlin loses his wife, his luggage and the self absurdness he has from faithfully believing guidebooks to the Tower written by authors who have never been there.

Senlin's attempts to find his wife involving him ascending upwards. The half of the book is a fantastical mix of Kafka and Alice in Wonderland as Senlin is trapped in the weird and wonderful lower tiers. The reader has as little clue as Senlin as to what is going on. Why are people peddling beer machines? Why is one whole floor of the tower given to a series of plays that the unwitting travel has to enter into, with strange instructions to "stoke the fires"? Why are people who get things run, or run out of money treated so badly? There are few answers here, though Senlin begins to piece things together on his quest.

Much of the early part of the book I read with a sense of unease. What was going on? Why? How will Senlin, the least capable person in the world, actually survive? Later the novel is on more familiar territory as Senlin finds some stability and begins to understand things. Clearly he is getting closer to finding his wife.

And then the book ends - I'd clearly missed all the hints that this was the first of several. The reader is faced with two existing sequels and a fourth in the pipe line. There was a time when every fantasy author felt they had to have three volumes to be like Tolkien. Such epic tales have their place. But there is also room for shorter stories, that suck the reader in and satisfy them quickly. Instead, resolution for Senlin seems a long way off, and I'm not sure I wanted to climb quite such a tall tower.

Nonetheless it is a well written piece of fantasy. Should time permit, I may return. There's much to enjoy here after all, a strange and disconcerting world; Thomas Senlin is a great character, and his wife Marya clearly is a woman more able to adapt to strange and dangerous circumstances, and a cast of weird and wonderful characters involved in a complex plot.

John Christopher - The Death of Grass

John Christopher's The Death of Grass is a remarkable ecological disaster novel first published in 1956. It's particularly surprising because it was published six years before Rachel Carson's classic Silent Spring kick started the modern environmental movement and at the heart of the book's disaster is a crisis caused by some of the same problems that Carson highlighted.

The book begins with the emergence of a strain of virus in Asia that decimates rice production there leading to the deaths of millions of people. It all seems very far away for the novel's main characters who, living in Southern England, are perfectly able to imagine that they will never be at risk. After all, Western Countries are producing enough food to send relief shipments to China, and surely the scientists will come up with something, they always do. As two of the protagonists discuss:

"Every government in the world is going to be comforting itself with the same reassuring thought. The scientists have never failed us yet. We shall never really believe they will until they do."
"When a thing has never failed before, it's not a bad presumption that it won't fail now."
"No," said Roger, "I suppose not." He lifted his nearly empty glass. "Look thy last on all things lovely every hour. A world without beer, Unimaginable. Drink up and let's have another."

Of course the virus defies attempts to defeat it, and jumps to wheat, rye and barley. Suddenly life is much more precarious and when the Roger and his friend John learn of the governments plans, they head north toward a secret valley farmed by John's brother David. Getting out of London proves a challenge, and requires John's group to begin their break from "civilisation". If "civilised society" hasn't broken down John comments, they'll all hang after their actions.

The failure of the scientists has been matched by the failure of the state. And civilisation descends rapidly into competing bodies of violent gangs intent on preserving themselves at the expense of everyone else. John's group have an aim - somewhere to get to - but everyone else is simply struggling to survive. This descent into animal like behaviour is actually the least convincing part of the book - I doubt doubt that some people would behave abominably as civilisation collapses and food becomes scarce. But it's also true that in disaster situations people organise collectively to try and help each other - something that just doesn't happen in The Death of Grass. The author underlines this by having the murderers and rapists often cover themselves in gold and jewels, despite their lack of value in the new world.

One great weakness in the book is the portrayal of women. By and large they are depicted as victims, following behind their menfolk who are doing the dirty and dangerous work. They are passive and unable to relate to the new situation. There is a particularly awful scene where one character murders his wife simply because of her infidelity, then takes a new, child bride.

Even within John's group there is discord and danger. The gun seller Pirrie who has come with them and brought guns and ammunition demonstrates the reality of the situation being prepared to kill in order to protect the groups, but exacting a tough price in return. Despite these limitations, the ending is very well done, though the detail need not concern us here.

In the introduction to this new edition, Robert Macfarlene contrasts the book to the "cosy catastrophe" of John Wyndham's work (The Day of the Triffids had been published a few years earlier). I felt that they shared more than he suggested, but The Death of Grass is much more brutal and lacks the comforting endings of Wyndham's books. Christopher also frames the disaster much better, locating it in an agricultural system that David points out, is more about producing goods decreed by the government, for the market; rather than worrying about the future. Faith in science proves, in Christopher's book, the Achilles' heel of modern society, whereas in Wyndham's work it is often society's salvation.

Ecological catastrophe aside, one other stand out of this novel is the extent to which the British state is prepared to go to ensure some people survive. They are stopped in this endeavour by a popular revolution in London, but the victors of this have little to offer except gramophone records on the BBC. Nero fiddles as London burns notes one of our heroes. Despite its bleak portrayal of human nature there is a lot in this book by John Christopher. I'm reminded how much I loved his Tripod trilogy as a youngster. His vision of ecological disaster has tragic parallels for today and I'm not surprised it has had a new renaissance after many years out of print.

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James S.A. Corey - Caliban's War

Volume two of James S.A. Corey's Expanse series continues almost where the first book left off. It maintains the fast pace of its predecessor but has a somewhat darker tone. While there is plenty of action and set piece battles these takes place in the context of the political battles going on between Earth, Mars and the Belter systems.

Because the fragile balance between these three political entities has been fundamentally altered by the arrival of an alien intervention in the Solar System. At the end of the last book an alien molecule which seems to be able to self-replicate (and communicate faster than light) took control of Venus. In the few months that have passed Venus has been completely transformed into an incomprehensible structure.

Elsewhere, different factions of human society compete for their own interests. These imperialist maneuvers in space are reshaping the solar system, but bringing interplanetary war closer. When it does finally erupt, a cascade of events takes place that brings the key characters from Leviathan Wakes into the centre of events again - led by the somewhat wooden James Holden.

Other characters are less wooden, such as the rude and belligerent UN senior politician Avasarala who plays politics like chess. The Martian Marine "Bobby" who watched her entire platoon get massacred by an alien living weapon is wooden, but in the way that soldiers are. The interaction between these two is one of the fun things about the book.

The novel itself races along. The authors have a talent for end of chapter cliff hangers, and because alternate chapters switch between viewpoints it means the reader finds themselves reading late into the night. While the plot isn't original, the story is tight and fun and sets up its fans for book three.

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James S. A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes

It's always dangerous diving into a novel that is part of an established series, particularly one like the Expanse universe which has already spawned various short stories, a TV series and is unlikely to see a final book any time soon. However I enjoyed Leviathan Wakes a lot. It is not a brilliant piece of science fiction, but it has some great ideas and good characters. In particular it is good at describing a Solar System carved up into differing and contested spheres of influence between Earth, Mars and the "Belt".

The main story follows two groups - one a rough Belter policeman trying to find a kidnapped woman against the backdrop of a war begun by the second group, a crew of spaceship that have accidentally begun an interplanetary war. Throw into the mix a novel form of alien life, intergalactic politics and a neat disregard for any of the major laws of physics and this is a novel that allows spacecraft to swoop around each other guns blazing, and alien technology that can disregard the laws of thermodynamics and gravity at will. If this sort of thing bothers you then you should probably re-read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, if it doesn't then you are in for a fast paced novel that draws some of its characters from the work of Raymond Chandler.

At times the plot is head together by some mind stretching coincidences and the aforementioned alien technology that can disregard the laws of science. But the writers whose collective pen name is James Corey are talented enough to get away with it, and the reader that reaches the end is likely to be left wanting to read the eight follow up books.

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Cixin Liu - The Wandering Earth

Cixin Liu has produced some of the most innovative and entertaining, as well as thought provoking science fiction that I've read in the last couple of years. So I was excited to pick up this volume of his short stories. Like his longer novels these are stimulating and in places unusual, as they subvert many of the established science fiction norms. The majority play around with various threats to Earth and humanity - some of these are natural and others are alien. The titular story considers how humanity might react to an sun that is about to destroy itself and its solar system. The solution, the moving of the Earth, is one that provokes intense debate and discussion. It might be read as a metaphor for the threat from climate change, as many people are swayed by denialism.

I was most struck by the rather poignant story Sun of China which follows Shui Wah on his journey from a tiny unremarkable, and extremely poor village into space. It is very much a story of modern China as Wah travels away from home trying to find work and make his fortune. His eventual employment as a window cleaner on one of Shanghai's numerous steel and glass tower blocks leads him into space. While the story is one purely of Wah's success and personal achievement its wider context is the conquering of space for ordinary working class people - the people who end up doing the maintenance and support for China's space enterprises. Cixin Liu cleverly links the ambitions and successes of Wah, together with the needs of space based economy. How do the capitalists make space travel cheap enough that they can get their labour into orbit?

Taking Care of God explores the return of the "Gods" from space. Gods in this context though are super-beings who firstly seeded Earth and now return seemingly to retire. As with all of Cixin Liu's stories it is multilayered, but raises real questions about how ageing societies, even ones that have conquered interstellar travel, can continue in the face of limited resources.

Several of the stories explore themes that will be known to readers of Cixin Liu's novels, particularly the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. The idea of "bubble universes" and time travel through hibernation are explored in different ways to the trilogy, but make for entertaining plot premises in themselves. The last two stories in the book are slightly linked, but very different tales. The penultimate one is unashamedly sentimental, and discusses the age old theme of an explorer isolated as an individual but still in contact with the rest of humanity.

The only story I didn't particularly like was Devourer which deals with a external threat to Earth as an alien spacecraft approaches intent on destroying Earth for its resources. There are very strong similarities to Cixin Liu's classic Three Body Problem especially in the high level human discussions about how to fight the aliens. If Three Body Problem followed Devourer, then I'm glad that the author used the short story to work through his ideas, as it doesn't quite come together here. Its treatment in that excellent novel is far superior.

All in all this is a strong collection that fans of Cixin Liu's other work will undoubtedly get a lot out of. I would recommend his novels as a starting point though.

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Rivers Solomon - An Unkindness of Ghosts

***Contains Spoilers***

It is rare to find a genuinely original science fiction novel, but Rivers Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts deserves that label. It is set on a generation starship, the Matilda, though the reader is never clear entirely why the ship left its home planet and where it is going. It is entirely possible that none of those on-board know either. The ship's destination is a "promised land" and this is the first clue to the nature of the society on the Matilda.

Whether it began like this or it somehow evolved/degenerated, the people on Matilda live in a society rigidly split by race and class. Those on the lower decks, like the central character in the book Aster, do the majority of the work and are all dark-skinned. The majority of those at the top of the ship's pecking order are white and live lives of extreme luxury. Aster has medical skills and she uses these to help those one her deck and on others. This doesn't mean that she can escape the mind-numbing work producing food for the thousands of people on-board Matilda though, and it is through Aster's eyes that we see how society maintains itself.

Despite the enclosed spaceship, this is not a vessel of shortages. The ruling elite live lives of luxury, with plenty of food, drink and, notably, space. The slaves at the bottom are crowded into communal living, working hard in fields and short of medicines, food and comforts. Despite the overwhelming numbers of slave workers the system is maintained through brutal violence and terror. Physical beatings are common, for the smallest of transgressions, rape and other abuse is common and, because this is a space ship, those at the top of the order even reduce the temperature of the lower decks to ensure cooperation. This results in tragedy. One of the poignant early scenes is when Aster has to remove a young person's foot as a result of frostbite.

Solomon uses the spaceship scenario brilliantly to make sure this isn't simply the antebellum South transposed into space. As Aster moves around the ship we find out that different levels have different languages, histories and beliefs. The author plays around with the use of gendered language and we see how the oppressed develop ways of communicating to get around their "masters".

Gradually Aster learns that her mother left her a secret before her death, one that might open up Matilda's mysteries, but one that puts Aster's in immense danger. That story is well told, but I'll admit that what I mostly enjoyed was the world that the author builds up. Slaves working in a generation spaceship growing food for their masters shouldn't work, but Solomon makes it real.

Like slavery the novel isn't pleasant. Solomon rightly doesn't duck the reality of violence - Aster makes her own medical paste to put on herself to numb the pain of being raped. An event that is common enough that they need to prepare for it. Some of the scenes of violence are painful, but they also serve to contextualise the latter rebellion against the system - one of the more satisfying scenes that I've read in science fiction for a long time.

Reading An Unkindness of Ghosts I was reminded of the story of the Haitian Revolution that was brilliantly retold in a book I reviewed recently. That's not to say that Rivers Solomon has written a work of history (though their own history weighs heavily on the characters in the novel). If anything this is a book about Earth today - with #BlackLivesMatter movements and other anti-racist campaigns fighting bigotry and racism today. With its discussions of class, race and gender it is a book that uses real history and a fictional future to illuminate the world today. I highly recommend it.

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Jeannette Ng - Under the Pendulum Sun

What would happen if Victorian England, in all its colonial glory, discovered fairy land? This is the intriguing basis for Jeannette Ng's new novel Under the Pendulum Sun. Catherine Helston is a classic example of her class. A young woman born into a middle class family, the daughter of a minister. Her beloved elder brother, Laon, follows their father into the church and becomes a missionary in the country of Arcadia - the land of the Fae.

Left behind in England, Catherine has little to do. Her upbringing has prepared her for a life of sewing, embroidery and tea parties. However when Laon's letters end she begins to fear for him, and eventually receives a letter from the missionary organisation asking her to try and find him. Once in Arcadia Catherine finds herself in a world that is both mysterious and constantly changing. Arcadia isn't simply another part of Earth, it's a place that can only be visited by getting lost (which is why Captain Cook found his way there on one of his voyages). It's a world that is utterly alien - the novel's title refers to the Pendulum Sun of Arcadia, that swings back and forth across the land.

Ng describes the world well. Inhabited by very strange characters and creatures, Catherine has to battle to escape being trapped in a pastiche of her life in England - stuck in a bizarre castle with a few strange characters, one of whom wants to discuss the finer points of Christian doctrine and the other who would mostly not tell Catherine any details of life, but instead take tea and sew.

Eventually Laon does return and Catherine and him find themselves in the midst of rather a complicated situation whereby the Queen of the Fae appears to be setting either a test, or a trap. There's a couple of twists to keep the reader hooked, though I thought the main plot turn was fairly expected. Ng portrays well the stifling nature of Victorian society for the female sex, and the simmering repressed sexuality for the middle classes.

More interestingly I was struck by a number of themes here. One of which is the neat way that Ng upends the dominant colonial mindset of Victorian England. During that period, the sun never set on the British Empire, and the British establishment want to extend that rule to Arcadia. Others are also interested - I loved the idea that Germany was building a railway to Arcadia consisting of a clockwork system to randomly move trains along points so they became lost.

The central ideology of the British Empire was that the English were the most superior race and everyone else was subsurvient. Yet in Arcadia their rules and methods don't work. Here Christianity makes no sense (despite the desperate attempts by Catherine and Laon to find the Fae in the Bible). Here military might is foiled by magic, and while there is much material to trade, it seems that Arcadia gets as much out of the exchange as the human world.

In the end Catherine and Laon find that they have no power in Arcadia. They have become living proof that British rule cannot extend into the lands of magic. But the nature of their Fall also means that they cannot ever return to their old lives. Under the Pendulum Sun is thus more than a simple novel of the Fae (to quote it's subtitle) but instead is quite a rather clever morality tale that shows what can happen to those who believe their culture is far superior to everyone else's. It's a great novel and despite a few errors that should have been caught in editing I enjoyed it alot.

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

This is an unusual and sometimes strange novel. It follows two attempts by humanity to colonise and terraform far distant worlds. The first of this is abruptly terminated when human civilisation collapses, but not before colonists have seeded a planet with earth creatures and a virus intended to allow the apes they've left to evolve rapidly into humans.

The second expedition follows the second colonisation attempt by a new human civilisation that has grown up on the ruins of the old. These are fleeing an Earth that can no longer support human society and have the old world's star charts to follow. When they arrive at the seeded planet they find things have not gone as the original mission intended.

The novel's chapters alternate between what takes place in space, mostly on humanities ship, and what's taking place on the planetary surface. I won't describe the latter as its too much of a spoiler, and frankly, part of the fun is in watching this develop through the book. But I should say there are some interesting discussions about gender and society as a result of Adrian Tchaikovsky's very alien civilisation.

On board the ship we follow the lives of a number of "key crew" who, because they are in suspended animation through the centuries long journey, get to experience all the major events in the story. It's a useful plot device and the main character, who is a academic expert on the old human civilisation, gives a nicely cynical view of events.

This is the first Adrian Tchaikovsky novel I've read and it is certainly different. It's not particularly subtle, but it has a genuinely original set of ideas at its heart and fans of science fiction should enjoy it.