Lana Reviews: Remnant Population - Elizabeth Moon

Having read the Paksenarrion trilogy and the four first books in Paladin's Legacy, I was already somewhat acquainted with Elizabeth Moon's writing, and as far as her works of Fantasy go, I really enjoy her books. So when I picked up Remnant Population for my reading challenge, I was quite excited to finally try something of hers in a different genre. Released in 1996, this book was nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel the year after, which eventually went to Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Ofelia Falfurrias was one of the original colonists of Colony 3245.12, arriving with her family to settle on the planet that would be their home for the next 40 years. During those years, her husband and all but one child died as did many of the other colonists, their death rate forever matching or exceeding their birth rate. When we enter the story, the authorities have revoked the Sims Bancorp's franchise to run the colony as it is considered a failure, and they have no choice but to disband it. As for the colonists themselves, they are to be forcibly shipped off in cryo-sleep to wherever the company feels like sending them. When Ofelia finds out that her family will be deducted for the cost of moving her from one place to another as she is considered too old to be of any further use for the Company, she decides to stay behind. There is a good chance her age will cause her to die while in cryo-sleep anyway, so why not spend what is left of her life where she buried her children and her husband?

On the day of departure, she hides away in the forest until she considers it to be safe to return to the village knowing that with their deadlines, the Company will not waste much time looking for one elderly colonist. At this point, she starts a fairly different existence to the one she has been forced into for so many years. Finally, she is free to play and to do what she herself wants to without fear of censure from the rest of the community, a freedom she hasn't had since she was a little girl. In spite of the work she has to do to stay alive, she is quite happy with her situation, when one day, a second group of colonists arrives, intending to settle somewhere to the north. As she listens to them, she unexpectedly becomes a witness to them being slaughtered by what cannot be anything other than sentient beings. For the first time since she herself arrived on this planet 40 years earlier, she realizes that the colonists were never alone.

It never ceases to amaze me how, no matter what kind of technology we as humans acquire or what kind of amazing things we can do, in most science fiction novels I have read describing all these wonderful things, the genders keep behaving as if they were still stuck in the Victorian era of our world, or worse. One would think that after having figured out how to move people across the universe, and how to colonize on worlds with ecologies not suited to support human beings and so on, there would be some improvement in the social spheres of life too, but no such luck. Among the colonists of Colony 3245.12, while men and women are taught to do the same jobs, it is considered the right way of things that the men should control the women, and the adults should control the children. Using violence to achieve either of these two, seems to be commonly accepted. When they are offered another way to look at things, they also respond with violence. Of course, it should be noted that the Company chose for their colonists to be uneducated people, set in certain ways and traditions, yet easy to form into what they needed and without too many ideas of their own. That, along with the placement of the colony itself, was most likely a factor that helped doom it to fail from the start.

I do like, however, how Moon hits right on the head how we as a society tend to treat our old people, in this novel illustrated in part by how an old woman is thought of no further value once she is past her child-bearing years. Where we should perhaps have cherished and honored them for their knowledge and their years of experience, we tend to write old people off as useless, someone who only takes up time and space; a bother. As the story unfolds, Moon shows us how things could have been had we considered their value differently, and appreciated them for what they were, and made use of their experience. And then she reminds us again, quite firmly, that this is just not the way of most human beings.

What I liked best about Remnant Population is how most of the story is told from the point of view of an old woman. She is often thinking about her aches, she is often grumpy, and she is completely aware of the fact that she does not know everything - although sometimes her general life experience makes her more knowledgeable than she gives herself credit for. She is an unlikely heroine, I think; I know I was surprised when I found out that the story would revolve around her, and not someone younger, or of a different gender - or both! Considering that that is what I have been served in most of the science fiction I've read till now, this was actually a nice surprise.

As a linguist, I guess I should also mention that once first contact is made between Ofelia and the unknown beings inhabiting the planet, it is fascinating to see how they go about trying to communicate with each other. Especially with their starting points being so completely different from each other and, at first glance, with no apparent common ground from which to get started.

All in all I really enjoyed this book, despite my general annoyance with sexism in science fiction. I guess it is not a overly exciting story as such, as a lot of the descriptions are of the daily toils of the main character; mundane tasks such as weeding the kitchen garden, fixing the houses, knitting, painting and cooking, and so on. Still, I kept wanting to go on to see what would happen next, especially once the unknown beings were introduced to the storyline, and I was never bored. It does not seem to matter that much to me whether Moon writes fantasy or science fiction, I seem to enjoy the results regardless.

Book Details
Title: Remnant Population
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 325
Year: 2003
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-345-46219-0
First published: 1996

All Clear - Connie Willis

All Clear is the sequel to Willis' novel Blackout, a new work on the Oxford time-travelling historians, which appeared earlier this year. Blackout and All Clear were written as one novel, but the book was split because the story grew beyond what a single hardcover could handle. I enjoyed Blackout a lot but it ended with a huge cliffhanger so a nine months wait to find out how the story ends was a bit on the long side. In my review of Blackout I said I would read another book by Willis in the mean time. I got so far as to buy a copy but I am afraid it is still on the to read stack. Looks like it is going to be a project for next year. I couldn't resist finding out what happened to the characters in Blackout however, so I started All Clear almost as soon as it arrived. All Clear proved to be a satisfying read although the two books combined left me with the feeling that they were a bit longer than the story needed.

All Clear picks up the story where Blackout ended. Our historians come to realize that their drops are not working and that they are trapped in the past. Despite frantic attempts to find one that works, the space-time continuum seems to conspire against them. The characters find themselves in London during the Blitz or in the south-west of England during the preparations for D-day, with V-1 and V-2 rockets descending around them. Not the most comfortable position to be in, even with knowledge of future events. To make matters worse, some of them have a deadline. It is not possible to visit is time you've already been to. If the historian does not make it back to the 2060s before the time of an earlier visit to the past arrives, the continuum will correct itself by killing the historian.

In twenty-first century Oxford, the historians have realized something is seriously wrong and start pulling their people out. When this proves to be impossible for the historians stuck in WWII England other means of rescuing will have to considered. A search for working drop points and the exact location of the missing historians is started. All across the space-time continuum historians are realizing that their understanding of time travel and the impossibility of altering history may not be complete. Perhaps the answer lies in a new way of looking at the historian's role in making history.

All Clear starts pretty much the same way Blackout ended. The characters trapped in the 1940s are running around trying to find a working drop. Where Willis used this to great comical effect in Blackout, in this book their activity slowly turn nightmarish. The first part of this book read likes one of those recurring dreams where you desperately need to be somewhere on time and you just might make it if not one obstacle after another is thrown in your path. Just when the historians conquer one problem and there still seems to be time to get to where they need to go, something else pops up. A development in the book that reaches a climax with Willis' vivid description of the particularly heavy raids on December 29th 1940. An event I consider to be something of a turning point in the novel.

This pair of books was conceived as one novel and at times I did wonder if it should perhaps have fitted in one volume. The crux of the matter is the way the characters view time travel and that their theory might be flawed. Willis takes a long time to have the characters arrive at this conclusion. By the end of Blackout the reader could have the feeling that the problem lies in this imperfect understanding. The characters take about half of All Clear to catch up with the reader in that respect. By the time we reach the breaking point formed by the raids of the 29th, I did feel Willis was taking too much time. I'm not sure if tightening this section would have made it fit into one volume, the two hardcovers have a combined page count that exceeds 1100, but there does seem to be some room to shed a few pages. On the other hand, and this is going to sound like a contradiction, I loved the way the story turns from comical via desperate to a downright nightmare over the course of the first three hundred pages of All Clear. The author handed her editor a pretty problem here. Perhaps they picked the best solution after all.

Like the first volume, this book is absolutely packed with historical facts from the Blitz and the preparation for the invasion of Normandy. The author points out lots of little things that made a difference in the war and that while none of them individually can be said to have won the war, each contributed to tipping the balance. Again the level of details is overwhelming at times, but in this book it is also more important. The characters are mortally afraid of having fatally altered history, examining each little fact that doesn't match with their knowledge of history for discrepancies and possibly the much dreaded proof that history has indeed been changed. The period Willis covers is the subject of libraries full of books but I still believe that there is a lot in these novels for the WWII history fanatics. The book depicts how all-encompassing the British war effort was and what it took the keep the nation on its feet after the evacuation of Dunkirk a very vivid way. It brings the every day life of those days very close, even for someone who is two generations removed from the actual events.

Blackout and All Clear are quite an investment on the part of the reader but despite the nine month wait and perhaps a few pages more than strictly necessary, I thought All Clear was a very rewarding read. The way in which Willis untangles the mess time travel has created and handles the looming paradoxes the historians are always on the verge of creating very well. Whether you will like this book or not really rests on two things. You need to be able to handle a lot of historical detail and cliffhangers shouldn't bother you. Like the previous book, All Clear is full of them. Willis' most ambitious work to date is not a book that will be universally loved. Despite my quibbles with some aspects of this work, I enjoyed it tremendously.

Book Details
Title: All Clear
Author: Connie Willis
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 641
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-553-80767-7
First published: 2010

Blackout - Connie Willis

Nine years after the appearance of her previous novel Passage a new Connie Willis book has hit the shelves. According to a recent post on the Suvudu blog it took Willis eight years to write the novel. A story that kept growing on her and eventually ended up being split in two parts. The second book All-Clear is scheduled for release in the autumn of 2010. Before you get worried, the second book has been delivered by Willis, there will be no indefinite wait. My only previous encounter with her work is her award-winning novel Doomsday Book, which I read in Dutch translation in 1999. Doomsday Book was a pretty good read but I liked Blackout better.

The story of Blackout revolves around a group of time-travelling Oxford university historians doing research on several aspects of life during de second world war in the UK. It is set in 2060, when time travel technology has been around for a while and the researchers are pretty confident in the laws that govern it. They firmly believe it is not possible for them to influence history by their presence in the past. In fact, it isn't even possible for them to approach the critical points in history. As such, their assignments do not appear to be too dangerous or exciting. One of the historians is on an assignment to see the effects on children being evacuated from London to the countryside to keep them save from bombings. Another is studying the life of Londoners living though the 1940 Blitz and the nightly stays in air raid shelters this involves. A third historian is studying some of the heroic actions performed by ordinary people and ends op in Dover at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force.

Business as usual of so it seems. From early on in the book there are signs that all is not as it should be. Time travel schedules are rearranged, greatly upsetting the preparation of the historians. On top of that they also have to deal with slippage, not precisely ending up in time where one intended to go. All manner of little things seem to prevent the characters from completing their assignment. When the drops, points where the historians can travel back to the 2060s, start giving them trouble too, the three realize just how much trouble they are in.

I did not realize this when I bought my copy of Blackout but the novel is related to several other novels and stories in Willis' oeuvre. I recognized a reference to Doomsday Book early on and I suspect there are a couple of references to other books as well. One of the minor characters, professor James Dunworthy will most likely be familiar to people more familiar to Willis' work. It is not necessary to read the previous books first. What you need to know about time travelling is explained in Blackout and the major characters appear to be new creations by Willis. The book is obviously not meant to be a direct sequel to any of the other works in this setting.

Blackout is only half the story and, it will not surprise you, ends on a major cliffhanger. Willis is generous with cliffhanger endings, not only at the end of the book, but at the end of the chapters as well. As such, on its own, it is not a very satisfactory read. We get to know the main characters, their projects and how they go awry. We also get some hints at the trouble they have gotten themselves in but then the story stops abruptly. I think to really say how good this novel is, we're going to have to wait until All-Clear is available.

There is a lot of potential in this story to make it excellent though. Willis' research on the period is meticulous. I don't want to think about how much time it must have cost her to figure out what was bombed when and at what time the various sirens went off. Such knowledge would be vital to a historian studying the period to be reasonably sure not to get killed on the assignment. The characters are acutely aware of these things as well as the main sequence of events. The research shows other details too. From the local slang at the time to the organisation of the war effort in the UK. Willis makes it very clear how ill-prepared the nation really was and how close it came to being defeated. The level of detail shows what a tour de force writing this book must have been.

The book contains a distinct comic element as well. At one point in the novel one of the characters works in a department store of Oxford street. The scenes there invoked all manner of unwanted associations with the sitcom Are you Being Served?, which is set thirty years later and has absolutely noting to do with the book. This is just how my brain works I guess. More often the comedy is intentional, with circumstances conspiring to prevent the character from achieving something they desperately need to do. The characters have to do a fair bit of improvising to make sure they do not arouse suspicion and often completely fail at this. I understand this comical side of the story is not unusual for Willis' writing. For a book that is so dependant on historical setting these scenes provide a good balance to what otherwise could have been a book dragged down by details.

There is an awful lot that I like about this book but the fact remains the story is not done. I can well understand the people who decide to wait until the second book is available before reading Blackout. That being said, it is one of the most enjoyable books I have read in some time so I think I will forgive the publisher for making us wait for the second part. I'm very much looking forward to the release of All-Clear. In the mean time I am considering picking up To Say Nothing of the Dog, a book in the same setting I haven't read yet. As far as I am concerned Blackout is a recommended read but if you are impatient you may want to wait until the second book is released before picking it up.

Book Details
Title: Blackout
Author: Connie Willis
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 491
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-553-80319-8
First published: 2010

The Songs of Distant Earth - Arthur C. Clarke

The Songs of Distant Earth is one of Clarke's later novels, based on a shorter piece of the same name he wrote in the 1950s. In the foreword Clarke states it is something of a response to the rise of what he calls "space opera" on television and the silver screen (he specifically mentions Star Trek, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas), which according to him are fantasy. I suppose one could see them as such if you stick to the narrow interpretation of science fiction. Personally I never saw the point of trying to define genres and sub-genres, it's pretty obvious it is almost impossible to come up with a definition that would satisfy everyone. To Clarke apparently it matters. He sets himself the task of writing a science fiction novel that portrays interstellar travel realistically. So get rid of your Heisenberg compensators, Warp drives and Hyperspace, time to get back to the basics. Sub-light speed travel that literally takes generations.

In 1956 physicists discover a new and exotic particle they name neutrino, a particle that passes right through the earth without even being slowed by it. A decade later the first measurements show that the sun is not emitting as many of these particles as the models predicted. It takes scientists until the early 21st century to solve the problem and the answer is disturbing. Something is seriously wrong. It appears the sun will go nova around the year 3600. That year is still far away but soon the first efforts the escape doom begin. Mankind is trying to reach the stars and seed colonies.

Sometime in the 39th century the Magellan, the last seedship to leave the earth before it is destroyed, arrives a the planet of Thalassa. The Eden-like ocean planet has been settled some seven centuries earlier. After a major volcanic eruption Thalassa has lost contact with the other scattered colonies and Earth itself. Their culture has stagnated to a content, idyllic, almost utopian society. The arrival of the Magellan shakes up the colony. The effects of this contact with this technologically very advanced, last group of colonists to escape earth is going to bring change to Thalassa, whether they like it or not.

The Songs of Distant Earth was published in 1986 and back then the solar neutrino problem was very real. To put your mind at ease, science considers it solved now. The sun does indeed emit less neutrinos than the models expected and this is not going to cause it to go nova. Don't ask me to explain it, the solution has something to do with some of the more counter-intuitive properties of neutrinos, I won't even pretend to understand it. The idea of this impending disaster is an interesting one though. It would certainly give humanity a long time project and the drive to make it work.

Apart from his doom scenario Clarke has also put quite a lot of thought into how this interstellar travel might be accomplished without resorting to faster than light travel. Especially the bit on the friction encountered in space by an object travelling sufficiently fast is very interesting. It's also something Alastair Reynolds mentions in one of his Revelation Space novels.

An even more speculative bit of science Clarke puts in his novel is the use of vacuum energy as propulsion for a spacecraft. This enables them to go much faster, although still nowhere near the speed of light because of the friction problem. This theory seems to have a theoretical basis but seems to have crossed the line into pseudo-science on occasion as well. It's not something science understands all that well, and if Clarke is to be believed, that situation will not change much for the coming millennium or more.

There's more to the novel than natural science of course. Clarke also takes a close look at the disturbance of his utopian society on Thalassa. I must admit this aspect of the novel is almost comical. The Thalassians are obviously pretty intelligent and technologically advanced but seem the have no drive whatsoever to accomplish anything. They're distracted all the time by trivialities. One of the best examples is the scene describing the meeting between the Magellan crew and the randomly elected president of Thalassa. It is absolutely hilarious. Many people will have serious problems accepting this society as realistic but it is certainly entertaining.

Thalassa may be an utopia, the story is not without its share of tragedy. The two groups have a window of about two years to interact before the Magellan continues its journey. Long enough for deep emotional attachments to form. With the crew in stasis, everybody the crew has known on Thalassa will long since have died by the time the ship reaches it's destination however. On top of that there is the trauma of being the last group to leave earth and see it being destroyed. Clarke carefully balances these aspects, giving the book sufficient depth to make it a thought provoking read without being overly heavy.

Whether Clarke managed to write something that is less fantastical than shall we say Star Wars is questionable. Clarke's futures always carry a touch of utopia, something that in my opinion at least, is most certainly not supported by history of the 20th century. Progress is one thing, what we're doing with it is quite another. Mix in the controversial science and highly speculative solution to the solar neutrino problem I'd say Clarke would have been wise to stick to a somewhat wider definition of science fiction that he seems to be advocating. That is, at least partly, hindsight though and it didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying this book. It won't top anyone's favourite list but if you are looking for a quick but thought provoking and slightly fantastic science fiction tale you could do worse than The Songs of Distant Earth.

Book Details
Title: The Songs of Distant Earth
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 320
Year: 1986
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 0-345-33908-8
First published: 1986