The House of Binding Thorns - Aliette de Bodard

The House of Binding Thorns is the second novel in Aliette de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen setting. It is not a sequel exactly. Both books can be read independently from each other. Madeleine and Philippe, two major characters from the previous novel The House of Shattered Wings, play an important role in this novel though. You will definitely get more out of the book if you have read them both. Readers who liked The House of Shattered Wings will want to read this one. It has all the elements that made the previous book a great read. Structurally it might even be a shade better.

House Hawthorn is led by the devious Fallen Asmodeus. He seems to be firmly in control, but the power of a House needs constant attention. By reaching out to the Vietnamese Dragon Kingdom, located under the surface of the murky river Seine, he hopes to gain even more power. The magic of the Dragon Kingdom is completely different from that of the Fallen. It offers opportunities, but there is danger in magic you don't fully understand too. Things get even more complicated when it becomes apparent that both House Hawthorn and the Dragon Kingdom are not as unified as they appear to be.

The setting is of course still the ruined Paris introduced in the first book. A city frozen in the remains of the Belle Epoque after a magical war destroyed it. Perhaps it was the absence of the dramatic ruins of the Notre Dame in this book but, I felt the author went a little easier on the worldbuilding. The setting is still instrumental in creating an atmosphere of desperation though. Paris is a dreadful and dangerous mess where people are trying to make life continue as best as they can. Including politics and petty struggles for power. People do not stop being people because of a magical Armageddon.

The story is one of two local powers in conflict. We get to see it from three sides though. Madeleine is dragged back into House Hawthorn after an absence of twenty years. She is forced to do Asmodeus' bidding but he clearly doesn't trust her. Her sense of decency and lack of subtlety get her in trouble quickly. Philippe, the other character introduced in the previous book is now houseless and seeks refuge in Goutte d'Or, the Vietnamese quarter of this alternate Paris. There, he meets the pregnant Françoise and her Fallen lover Berith. They soon find themselves caught in the power struggle initiated by Asmodeus' bold move. The Dragon Kingdom's position is mostly shown through the point of view of Thuan, a dragon prince sent to House Hawthorn to spy. His position will drastically change over the course of the novel.

House Silverspires, the focal point of the previous novel, was not always a pleasant place. It was a house that, even when desperate, showed the tiniest bit of humanity even when making ruthless decisions. That cannot be said of Hawthorn. Asmodeus rules by putting fear into his subjects. Every time he had a scene I could almost hear Mick Jagger sing "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste.." The way De Bodard lets control slip away from him in the novel is very well done and, at some level, very satisfying. He is as good as creepy characters get. There is quite a bit of biblical symbolism in his acts and dialogue too.

In a way, this novel is not just a clash between two houses, but also a clash between two world views. Françoise and Philippe show us what the bitter legacy of colonialism is. While life in a House is not easy, the predominantly Vietnamese Houseless gathered in Goutte d'Or live in destitute poverty. Here and there, De Bodard also mentions people from other parts of the French colonial empire. We're not meant to forget the multi ethnic composition of the city. Something the climax of the novel will emphasize once again.

The clash between the Judeo-Christian mythology the Fallen derive their power from, and the Khi derived from Vietnamese mythology, is something of a metaphor for many conflicts going on in the world right now. The text poses the question how we want to handle conflicts between various world views. Domination, cultural imperialism, peaceful coexistence, cold war, alliances and synergy all come up in this novel. De Bodard explores how these world views affect each other, how they chafe, how one could destroy the other in a conflagration or through a gradual breaking down of cultural values. In the end, the surviving characters realize they will have to make it work somehow. Let's just hope the world will not have to pay the price this realisation has extracted from De Bodard's ruined Paris.

I generally enjoy De Bodard's work, both stylistically and because of the themes she uses, and this novel is no exception. I thought the plot of this novel flowed a bit more smoothly than that of the House of Shattered Wings. It is dark and desperate, full of characters overreaching in an effort to prevent what little they have managed to salvage from destruction slipping from their grasp. It tackles some of the problems of today's society with a touch of Victor Hugo and a bit of magic. It blends the Christian power of sacrifice and redemption with the eastern flow of life force and sense of duty. It is a novel that has a lot to offer. One of those books that will yield more on a reread. The House of Binding Thorns was high on the to read list for this year and fully lived up to my expectations. Not many books manage to do that.

Book Details
Title: The House of Binding Thorns
Author: Aliette de Bodard
Publisher: Ace
Pages: 356
Year: 2017
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-451-47739-2
First published: 2017

Direct Descent - Frank Herbert

One of the projects I've been working on pretty much from the start of this blog, is reading and reviewing all of Frank Herbert's novels not set in his Dune universe. Last year, for reasons not quite clear to me, I didn't get around to reviewing a single one. Very strange considering the trouble I went through, to acquire some of the less well known novels. Direct Descent (1980) is one of the novels I haven't read before. It hasn't been reprinted in ages, the most recent edition I could find dates from 1988. Given the quality of the work, I am surprised it got reprinted at all. It is by a fair margin the weakest novel by Frank Herbert I've read.

In the far future the whole of Earth's interior has been taken up by a gigantic library. Ships travel the known universe to collect information about just about everything and bring it back to Earth to archive it and make it available to the entire galaxy. The first and foremost rule of this organization is the always obey the government whomever that may be. A rule meant to underline the institutes strict neutrality. But what if the government sends its warships at you? How can you defend yourself armed with archives full of useless knowledge and a policy of strict obedience?

Direct Descent is expanded from the short story The Pack Rat Planet, which first appeared in Astounding in December 1954. It is one of Herbert's earliest science fiction stories, published before his first novel The Dragon in the Sea (1956). It's not the only short piece Herbert expanded to a novel. He did the same with the Lewis Orne stories which were turned into The Godmakes (1972) and The Green Brain (1966) was originally a shorter piece too. I've tried to find the text of the original story but apparently the copyright on this one hasn't expired yet. My guess would be that the original story is part one of the novel, with a part two added later.

Although this work is usually listed as one of Herbert's novels, I doubt it actually exceeds forty thousand words. My mass market paperback edition has 186 pages, of which at least 80 are taken up by pencil drawings credited to one Garcia. Name doesn't ring a bell with me but given the absolutely dreadful cover (that poor fellow looks like he is about to throw up), perhaps that is for the best. I didn't think any of the interior illustrations were particularly inspired work either.

To be hones,t I am amazed that Herbert published this. Or that it was the same man who wrote The Dosadi Experiment just a few years prior, and went on to produce three more popular Dune novels. It simply lacks just about everything that makes Herbert's work interesting. Besides the idea of the gigantic library, which apparently came to Herbert after visiting the Library of Congress, there is very little in the way of worldbuilding or interesting scientific or philosophical concepts present in the novel. Where Herbert's works are usually filled to overflowing with ideas, for some reason he doesn't use the main strength of his writing in this novel. It brutally exposes how little is left when you take that away.

The two parts of the novel are only very loosely connected to each other. Other than the setting and the nature of the threat (government trying to pull the plug on the Library) there isn't a whole lot that connects the stories. Herbert made no attempt whatsoever to turn this into one novel, he just added a second story. I don't think it ever appeared in a magazine but it could be read independently. Both plots are pretty straightforward and in both instances the policy of strict obedience serves the library well. I guess you could see this work as satirical, a government not in control of it's own creation. If satire was what Herbert intended, the Jorj X. McKie stories succeed a lot better in that.

This novel is without a doubt the worst think I've read by Herbert. It's a very weak attempt at expanding a short story that barely had enough body to make it work in the short format. Some people feel that Herbert's skill as a writer usually cannot keep up with his insights and ideas, a few even go so far as to declare anything beyond Dune unreadable. Personally I am a bit more tolerant of what are usually considered flaws in his writing. In this novel however, I have failed to find anything that usually appeals to me in Herbert's work. I guess the completist will want to read it anyway, but if you are not, don't feel bad about skipping it.

Book Details
Title: Direct Descent
Author: Frank Herbert
Publisher: Ace Books
Pages: 186
Year: 1981
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 0-441-14903-0
First published: 1980

WWW: Wonder - Robert J. Sawyer

The final part in Robert J. Sawyer's latest trilogy was released earlier this month. I liked the first novel, WWW: Wake, a lot so I've kept an eye out for the sequels. Unfortunately I thought the second part WWW: Watch, which I read earlier this year, was not nearly as strong as the first. I hate to leave series unfinished however, so let's have a go at the third book. WWW: Wonder is the sixth book by Sawyer I've read, and in all six he has the tendency to bludgeon the reader with his views on science, religion and society. Even for me and, by and large, I agree with his views, this does not make for good reading. The previous novel in this trilogy was particularly marred by this and as a result I enjoyed it a lot less than book one. WWW: Wonder does not escape it entirely but my fear that the WWW trilogy would end in a disappointment similar to the Neanderthal Parallax, didn't materialize either. It does have a few aspects I am not thrilled about though.

The secret of Webmind's existence is out, he has introduced himself to the general public and launched a PR-offensive by eliminating all spam e-mail from the Internet. Still, not everybody is convinced of Webmind's good intentions and the pressure to find a way to get rid of him persists. In the mean time, Caitlin Decter is enjoying her 15 minutes of fame. She has been taken from school after a run-in with the Canadian intelligence service and is now being home schooled. Although Webmind is now free to chat with just about everybody on the planet with an Internet connection, Caitlin, or prime as he sometimes thinks of her, remains special. Her input will be crucial in creating a place for himself in human society.

In WWW: Watch, Sawyer managed to create and atmosphere of subdued suspicion. The people at WATCH, who are paid to be suspicious, didn't quite manage to convince me that Webmind was a genuine threat. On the other hand, Webmind wasn't too successful in convincing me otherwise either. It was one of the stronger parts of the previous novel. Sawyer is much more explicit in that respect in WWW: Wonder. The character of Colonel Hume, someone who is determined to see Webmind cleansed of the Internet, uncovers some disturbing facts. Some of the best hackers known to the intelligence community, people whom Hume considers capable of writing the code necessary to achieve Webmind's eradication, are disappearing. Suspicious, but not really Webmind's style.

While Webmind sets off all Hume's alarm bells, his behaviour as witnessed by the rest of the planet becomes increasingly that of humanity's saviour. One of the works is finding a cure for cancer, or more accurately, combining all human knowledge (found on the Internet) on it and combining it in new ways that suggests a possible cure. He reunited people who have lost track of each other, prevents crime and uses his Big Brother capabilities for a lot of other good causes as well. Where in the previous novel Webmind makes you suspicious, these two extremes are so far apart that is seems almost impossible we're talking about the same entity here. I appreciate Sawyer's attempt to break away from the line of reasoning, and countless science fiction novels, that an artificial intelligence will automatically see humans as inferior and a threat (or worse, a pest to be exterminated). It is definitely a theme that sets this trilogy apart from other novels, but a slightly more subtle approach would have been nice.

One other fascinating idea that pops up in this novel is what happens if part of the Internet is disconnected from the rest, thus splitting Webmind in two parts. Somewhere along the line, I can remember if it was in the first or second book, perhaps both, Sawyer already mentions that a certain threshold, a minimum of complexity in the system needs to be reached in order for Webmind to remain conscious. Here, both parts are seriously diminished, causing the smaller of the two parts to behave erratic. Again, Sawyer chooses to go for an extreme here and portrays the smaller part of Webmind as some sort of evil twin. I thought this part of the story a bit underdeveloped. Why does one part of Webmind seek to reunite the two entities where the other doesn't even seem to be aware of the other or the loss of such a large part of itself? It could have made a very interesting story line, with possibilities for parallels with certain psychological conditions for instance. Its a pity the author doesn't dig a bit deeper here.

I don't consider WWW: Wonder a great novel but there is still a nice mix of ideas on consciousness, information technology and the sheer impact the Internet is having on today's society. Sawyer also includes a little less Canadian peculiarities into this book, which is a good thing. I am all for cultural diversity but if you do decide to include it, please make sure it is relevant to the story. Despite my quibbles with some aspects of the novel, it was an enjoyable read. Sawyer concludes the book with an epilogue reminiscent of the writing of Arthur C. Clarke, which I though was a nice touch. On the whole the trilogy left me with the feeling that it leaned a bit too heavily on interesting ideas at the expense of a good plot. I guess Sawyer's book is not unlike Webmind in that respect. Good at combining already existing information into new patterns, but a little light on artistic creativity.

Book Details
Title: WWW: Wonder
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Publisher: Ace Books
Pages: 338
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-441-01976-2
First published: 2011

WWW: Watch - Robert J. Sawyer

I recently realized that I still hadn't read this book despite rather liking the first part in the WWW trilogy. Since the final book is expected to be released in April, now seems to be a good time to get if off the to read stack. I thought the first book, WWW: Wake, also the first I have read by Sawyer, was a very interesting novel on many levels. The trilogy deals with consciousness in various forms and Saywer uses some unusual protagonists to tell this story. I have since read Saywer's Neanderthal Parallax, which after a strong start in Hominids, finishes a disappointment with de decidedly weaker sequels Humans and Hybrids. After having read WWW: Watch I'm left wondering if something similar is going to happen to this trilogy.

WWW: Watch picks up the story where we left it in the first book. Fifteen year old and, until recently, blind girl Caitlin Decter has made contact with the conciousness that has arisen on the world wide web. The question that needs answering is what to do next? Caitlin is worried that if the existence of Webmind, as the entity is called, becomes common knowledge, someone will try to take him out. Still, she has to trust someone. There are things Caitlin cannot do for Webmind and she can't be by his (Caitin insists Webmind is male) side twenty-four hours a day. There is such a thing as school after all. Reluctantly Caitlin informs her parents and so Webmind is introduced to the world.

Caitlin's fears are not entirely unjustified. Without her knowledge the Web Activity Threat Containment Headquarters (WATCH), a branch of the American intelligence agency NSA, has figured out what is going on. Monitoring the communication between Caitin, her parents and Webmind they, naturally, see a threat. What they need is a way to take out Webmind but if it has an off switch, the location of it is not apparent. There appears to be only one way to learn more about it, and that is asking the Decters. Unfortunately they reside in Canada and are not willing to cooperate.

In this novel Sawyer sets out developing some of the ideas he set loose on the reader in the first book. It is a book that deals with consequences for the most part. He describes Caitin's response to seeing the world for the first time, Webmind's reaction to being able to communicate with humans and the world's reaction on finding out Webmind exists, among other things. The way these developments are portrayed are not quite as convincing as in the first novel. Especially the character development of Caitlin leaves something to be desired.

In the first novel, I thought Sawyer managed to depict the world of a blind teenager quite convincingly (as far as someone with reasonably good eyesight can judge anyway). The challenges posed by a PC for instance, are quite detailed in that book. In this novel, I feel Sawyer slips. It's in the details, the way Caitlin responds to being able to see mostly, but also an unguarded comment on how the only chore in the Decter household Caitlin was able to perform is setting the table. That's on top of the problems Sawyer, a middle-aged male who to my knowledge does not have children, of getting into the mind of a teenage girl. It's a valiant attempt but it doesn't fully succeed. It gets even worse when Caitlin decides she is in love.

Webmind is handled a lot better. He, for the moment I'll agree with Caitlin, is an interesting character, a hugely intelligent entity coupled with an almost childlike naïveté about the world. Given the amount of science fiction that deals with artificial intelligence (can Webmind be considered AI without having been purposely created by humans?) turning against humanity, it is not surprising some of the characters, most notably Caitlin's mother, keep this possibility in the back of their mind when dealing with him. Sawyer never let's Webmind do anything remotely evil, although it does need some pointers on privacy, but the author clearly shows what damage Webmind is capable of, if he put his mind to it. There's a subtle sense of suspicion you can't quite shake even if you dismiss all the intelligence agency nonsense. I wonder if this aspect of the novel will be further developed in the last novel of the trilogy.

Another noticeable difference between the first and the second book is that Sawyer is more preachy in this novel. He's never made a secret of the fact that he prefers rationality over religion or that he quite likes Canada and would not like to see certain aspects of US society introduced there. There is nothing wrong with these opinions of course, in fact I agree with him for the most part, but the way they are woven into the story is annoying at some points. I know Thanksgiving is not on the same day in the US and Canada (and there is no such thing here in the Netherlands!), I know the outlook on the history of both nations is very different on either side of the border and still tinged by nationalism in some cases. There's quite a long list of little items such as these. They are only marginally relevant to the story, there is absolutely no need to bludgeon the reader with it. To top it all off, Sawyer includes a reference to FlashForward, the television series based on one of his stories, which is the most shameless bit of self-promotion I've come across in a novel.

These little annoyances add up an distract to what Saywer has to say on consciousness and the rise of Webmind. That is a shame because the author adds a whole lot to what was already discussed in WWW: Wake. Caitlin's father performs a Turing test on Webmind for instance, which I consider one of the more interesting scenes in the book. The results and implications are very interesting but it doesn't settle whether or not Webmind is conscious in the way humans are. It looks like Sawyer's got some more ground to cover on this subject. In this novel he's beginning to integrate the story of Webmind and that other non-human conciousness, the Bonobo/Chimpanzee hybrid Hobo. I look forward to seeing how this will develop in WWW: Wonder.

Overall I guess there were a few too many little annoyances in this book the make it as good a read as WWW: Wake was. Although that book does clearly contain some of the same bad habits as Sawyer displays here, it is a lot more muted in that novel. I will admit that my opinion of this novel may have been a bit coloured by reading the Neanderthal Paralax in the mean time though. Still, I do hope Sawyer can raise his game a bit for the final novel and prevent this trilogy from ending in disappointment. There is plenty to work with in this series, he should still be able to reach a satisfying conclusion.

Book Details
Title: WWW: Watch
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Publisher: Ace Books
Pages: 352
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-441-01818-5
First published: 2010

WWW: Wake - Robert J. Sawyer

After finishing Connie Willis' rather big book All Clear I decided to dive into Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. It will perhaps not come as a surprise to you but I won't be able to finish it in time for a midweek review. To keep you entertained until I finish it an older piece. I wrote this review in April 2009. I rewrote part of the introduction because the original doesn't make sense for this blog. Other than just some polishing. I hope to read the second part in the WWW trilogy sometime in December.

WWW: Wake is the first part in Sawyer’s new WWW trilogy. It was released in April 2009, followed by WWW: Watch two in 2010. The final part, WWW: Wonder, is expected in 2011. This book is my first exposure to Sawyer’s work. One of his novels, Hominids, has been gathering dust on my to read pile for quite a while now. It’s one of those books I intend to read whenever I can fit them into my review schedule. So far I haven’t found an opening but after reading this book I think I may have to make an opening for it soon, WWW: Wake was a very entertaining read.

Fifteen year old Caitlin has been blind from birth. She has a very rare medical condition that affects the link between her eyes and the part of her brain interpreting visual signals. So far no treatment has helped but now a Japanese doctor contacts her with a proposal for an experimental treatment. It involves an implant that will restore the connection between her brain and eyes digitally and hopefully allow her to see. The procedure itself seems to be a failure but soon Caitlin notices some interesting side effects. She can visualize the world wide web.

In the mean time some seemingly unrelated events take place elsewhere on the planet. In China an outbreak of the bird flu is handled by the Chinese government by shutting the country off from the outside word completely and taking some very rigorous containment measures. In a research facility in southern California a Bonobo/Chimpanzee hybrid Hobo, taught to communicate with it’s caretakers by using American Sign Language, shows it is capable of producing representational art. Soon a fierce battle over it’s custody erupts. All of these events are witnessed at some level, by a rising intelligence on the world wide web. It’s struggle to gain awareness is hard, without a physical environment it is a very abstract way of evolving. It is learning fast however and it seems to have found a teacher in Caitlin.

Sawyer has written a pretty fast paced novel with WWW: Wake. Deceptively so in fact. Although it does not slow the story down, he has packed the text with references to developments in information technology, mathematics, physics, linguistics and a number of other fields. He does so without the reader having to understand every detail of the science he describes, the general idea is usually enough, but all this scientific and technical detail does create a second layer into this novel. Parts of the novel read like Oliver Sacks writing science fiction. There is a wealth of references to all manner of technological and scientific ideas and a number of books (including some science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey for one). I’m pretty sure that after this first reading in I missed quite a few too.

By using all of these different ideas Sawyer creates an interesting view on the main theme of the novel, the development of self-awareness. The debate on how intelligent Chimpanzees are for instance, and to which extend they are capable of using language is one that has been going on for quite a while. The researchers in this book are constantly battling disbelief and prejudice, but are also faced by the question of whether what they are seeing is truly intelligent behaviour or just copying an example. What is happening on the web is something of a different nature, a being without a physical component, or at least not aware of the fact is has one, struggling to master concepts that are more mathematical in nature. While Hobo already exhibits complex behaviour the web entity starts from scratch. The contrast between those two is one of the most interesting parts of the novel.

The main part of the novel is devoted to Caitlin. Sawyer obviously put in a lot of effort to try and understand how a person who has never been able to see, experiences the world. Not being blind, I have no idea how accurate it is but it certainly feels convincing. Sawyer doesn’t overdo it though, despite her handicap Caitlin is pretty much what you’d expect of a teenage girl. Apart from a perverse enjoyment of mathematics that is. Seriously, that can’t be healthy. There was one thing that did bother me however, Caitlin’s discovery of her father’s autism. Even without the visual clues that seems to be hard to miss if you live with someone on a day to day basis.

There are plenty of interesting ideas in this book but it is the first in a trilogy. I guess it is not surprising but while the end of the novel is satisfying in a way, it does leave an awful lot of open questions. The main story lines are beginning to converge but the relevance to the story of Caitlin of both Hobo’s story and that of the bird flue outbreak in China is far from clear. WWW: Wake is a very good read but with so many open ends it does feel like the introduction to a much larger story. I guess the wait for the second part in the trilogy, WWW: Watch, begins. Sawyer still has a long way to go on this project but he is certainly off to a good start.

Book Details
Title: WWW: Wake
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Publisher: Ace Books
Pages: 356
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-441-01679-2
First published: 2009

Chasm City - Alastair Reynolds

I began last year's reviewing with an Alastair Reynolds review, I began Random Comments with an Alastair Reynolds review so I figured I might as well start 2010 with an Alastair Reynolds book as well. Not that he did anything to deserve it but apparently I associate his book with beginnings. Chasm City is his second novel and it's set in his Revelation Space universe. Unlike Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap, which have to be read in that order, this book is a standalone and can be read without any prior knowledge of the Revelation Space universe. I enjoyed Chasm City tremendously. Had I finished it last year it would probably have been on the best of 2009 list.

When we meet Tanner Mirabel he has quite a history as a soldier, mercenary and security specialist behind him. His planet, Sky's Edge, has been at war pretty much since its colonization and is considered something of a backwater by it's neighbours. Technology is behinds centuries if it doesn't have military applications. Tanner is not interested in the war though, he is on a manhunt. His target is a local aristocrat who's family has been wiped out using weapons Tanner's boss Cahuella sold to a third party. That they were not intended for Reivich's enemies is no mitigating factor, a vendetta is born. Reivich has managed to kill Cahuella and his wife Gitta, whom Tanner sworn to protect. Tanner is still alive though, an oversight Reivich is going to regret.

His hunt takes Tanner to another system. When he he is woken from cryogenic suspension after a fifteen year trip he suffers from amnesia and despite a desire not to let the trail grow cold he is forced to take at least some time to recover. A virus created by one of the religious orders, or perhaps one should say personality cults, on his home planet is further complicating matters. It is engineered to inspire religious feelings in those who contract it by letting them relive the life of the object of their worship, a man named Sky Haussmann, in their dreams. Tanner struggles to regain his memory and keep Haussmann's personality at bay but his objective remains clear. He needs to find Reivich.

What struck me most about this book is the vast improvement in the writing. Reynolds' first novel Revelation Space was a good read but it had some pacing problems as well as a number of awkward dialogues. There is no trace of that in Chasm City. It is something of a different beast though. Where Revelation Space is a space opera with a large scope and equally large cast, Chasm City is basically Tanner's story. If you're a big fan of Space Opera five hundred pages on one main character may be a bit too much.

For me Tanner was a great character however. I can't go into too much detail without major spoilers but Tanner certainly faces some stiff challenges in this book. The combination of amnesia combined with the viral infection making hem relive another man's life turn his life into a struggle to maintain his identity. On top of that he is dropped into a strange environment without preparation. Certainly, he has heard of Chasm City and its orbiting band of Demarchist habitats a place of wonders, decadence, vast riches and advanced technology. By the time he arrives the melding plague, a major plot element in the Revelation Space trilogy, has struck and the Glitter Belt has been renamed Rust Belt.

Chasm City has changed beyond recognition. With all advanced technology failing the city has had to rely on simpler and older forms of technology to keep the planet's hostile environment at bay. The city is largely powered by steam engines powered by the rising heat and gasses from the planet's interior. The buildings, once infused with technology have taken on grotesque forms. It gives the whole city a bit of a steampunk atmosphere. Even if Tanner hits rock bottom in a city where the rich live in the clouds, we don't quite get to see the hard, dark place Scorpio remembers in later books.

Before turning to writing full time, Reynolds worked for ESA. His expertise in physics and astronomy clearly shows in his books. Chasm City does not contain quite as much technical details as other books I have read by Reynolds. In part this is because the story does not have quite so much space travel in it. The scenes we see of Haussmann's live contains most of the science I suppose. In the Revelation Space trilogy the physics got sufficiently exotic that I was unable to distinguish it from technobabble at some points, only to find out later that there was indeed a theoretical basis for it. In Chasm City Reynolds goes easy on us. Not that there isn't still quite a bit of physics hidden here and there in the book, but a lot of science is more biology and physiology. Things I find easier to understand at the intuitive level.

I have a few of Reynolds novels still on the to read list but at the moment Chasm City is the best of the bunch I have read. A standalone but set in his best known setting, this novel is also a very good place to start if you haven't read any of his books. Not quite as dark as some of his other books, it does still incorporate a suspense/mystery element as well as a lot of hard science fiction and closer look at one of his most interesting locations and it's society. If you only read one Alastair Reynolds novel, Chasm City has to be it. A highly recommended read.

Book Details
Title: Chasm City
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Publisher: Ace Books
Pages: 524
Year: 2002
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-441-00912-3
First published: 2001