Fair Rebel - Steph Swainston

After a six year break, the fifth novel in Steph Swainston's Castle setting appears this month. Her previous novel, Above the Snowline (2010), is a prequel to the Castle trilogy. Fair Rebel continues the story of the trilogy. It is set some fifteen years after The Modern World (2007). Readers can pick up this novel without having read Above the Snowline. The novel reads like Swainston never really left Fourlands. It is a seamless continuation of the story and I think most readers will agree it was more than worth the wait. Swainston is clearly not done with her creation. She leaves us with a bit of a cliffhanger and the promise of a sixth novel in the making.

A decade and a half after the disastrous attempt to flood the insects out of an area of paper covered land, Castle is ready to go on the offensive again. This time with a new weapon. Gunpowder has been introduced, and with it a whole range of destructive weapons. In an attempt to gain ground on the insects, a plan is devised involving large quantities of the new explosive. Just when the trap is about to be sprung, it becomes clear that a significant portion of the gunpowder is not in the barrels it was supposed to be in. While the offensive grinds to a halt, Jant is sent out to investigate. He soon finds the trail of a conspiracy that threatens the foundations of Castle's power, and with it the worlds most powerful defence against the insects.

The novel opens with a scene that, although the technology is still a bit behind, reminded me of the western front battle fields in World War I. The use of artillery barrages and mining is very reminiscent of some of the huge battles that took place a century ago. The technological mismatch adds an element though. Fourland's armies are still in the process of figuring out the best strategies to match their new firepower, which older technology can still be applied effectively, and how to overcome the disadvantages of gunpowder and spherical musket balls. It's another example of how different levels of technology are woven into the narrative without appearing to be out of place. it is something that continually impressed me over the course of the series.

Although the opening of the novel echoes battles a century old, Fair Rebel is a book very much influenced by recent events. What Jant stumbles upon is in essence a terrorist campaign. Swainston shows us in the novel how a determined person can use the fault lines in society caused by economic inequality, discrimination and racism and tap into bottled up feelings of resentment, jealousy and hatred to unleash terrible violence. Swainston has never been easy on her characters or the bystanders that get caught in the crossfire, but this novel features some of the most brutal events in the series.

Terrorism, if the media and politicians are to be believed, is the great evil of our time. The senseless killing over political or religious differences, often including many who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time is considered an act of supreme evil. And yet, it is perpetrated be people who, despite all their misguided actions, have feelings, loved ones and dreams. Swainston could have chosen to let Jant battle a faceless evil but chooses not to do so. Instead, the main terrorist in the novel is given a point of view. We get to see their motivations and how events affect them. What Swainston does in this novel is uncomfortably close to many events occurring in the world today. Anger and violence toppling power structures without regard for the damage it causes and without a plan for what comes after. She makes it look irrational but understandable all the same.

The other side of the story is of course the temptation to go along with the hatred, fear and suspicion offered by the terrorist. It is tempting to generalize, to suspect whole segments of the population, and to deepen the rift by taking sweeping action against the terrorists. Centuries of life experience clearly does not make the immortals immune to this temptation. The spiral of suspicion, hate and violence is laid out clearly in the book. One does not have to look far in the real world to see this happening.

Swainston also continues to make us doubt the main characters. Seen from the secondary point of view, Jant is a terrible character. He is viewed with a mix of awe, fear and contempt. He has become more comfortable with his power and is ruthless when dealing with his enemies. A rather sharp contrast to the self-doubting, whining addict he can be when seen from his point of view. Emperor San himself is not free of suspicion either. At the end of The Modern World an entity known as the Vermiform accuses him of not developing Fourland's resources to their full potential and of trying to maintain a status quo with the insects. The sudden appearance of gunpowder soon after, seems to indicate that accusation stung. After facing off with the Vermiform, San doesn't seem as distantly all knowing as he did in the previous books. That Olympic quality he (and many of the immortals) started out with has tarnished. He looks like a tyrant. And, what's worse, downright vulnerable.

I did feel Swainston leaves us hanging a bit in the final chapters of the novel. While one part of the story is resolved, a rather large cliffhanger is left to deal with in the next volume. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you, Fair Rebel is a very good read. It is probably the fastest paced of the Castle novels I have read so far. It is one of those books where you just have to read the next volume to see how the story continues. After four novels, many fantasy worlds begin to feel familiar. There clearly is much more to explore in Fourlands though. I eagerly await the next novel to see what else Swainston has in store for us.

Book Details
Title: Fair Rebel
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 322
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-081697
First published: 2016

Nova - Samuel R. Delany

A very young Samuel R. Delany burst upon the science fiction scene in the 1960s. In rapid succession he produced a number of stories that are now considered new wave classics between 1962 and 1968. After that publications topped for a number of years, and his next notable speculative fiction novel is Dhalgren (1975), which is highly regarded in science fiction circles . Nova is the final novel of the first part of his career. It appeared in 1968 and was nominated for a Hugo the following year. Having only read one other book by Delany, Babel-17 (1966), I'm not really in a good position to say anything about how this work fits into his oeuvre. What I did notice was the same kind of almost uncontrollable energy in the writing. Nova is a wild ride.

In the 32nd century humanity has colonized the galaxy. This expansion is fuelled by a group of super heavy elements (300+ on the periodic table) collectively known as Illyrion. It is extremely rare but the energy contained in these atoms is huge. Captain Lorq von Ray is on a mission to gather Illyrion at the source, the heart of a star going nova. Doing so will change the power dynamic of the galaxy and those currently in power would rather keep it that way. The captain and his eccentric crew are in for a wild ride into the heart of a sun, if they live long enough to get there.

There is a bit of hard (and very speculative) science in the synopsis, and it does have links to golden age science fiction. There is a reference to Isaac Asimov's Foundation for instance, and to Clark Ashton Smith, a prolific author in the pulp and golden age of science fiction. In most regards, it is a new wave novel. It has been described as a grail quest in space for instance, and the crew has been likened to the Argonauts. The mystical aspects of the novel are certainly much more important than the science. Von Ray's grail (or golden fleece) is a vast supply of energy.

Another element, one that hard science fiction fans may frown upon, is very prominent role of tarot in the story. Most characters seem to believe the outcome of a reading. The one exception is the Mouse, a Gypsy character. The novel is showing its age here, these days he would probably have been a Romani character. It reminded me a bit of how the characters seek guidance in the I Ching in Phillip K. Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle (1962). The belief in tarot is so prevalent in the novel that even the Mouse feels uncomfortable at a reading. Fortunately Delany does not appear to have used tarot to guide his plot.

There is a political element to the novel as well. All the characters have sockets installed that allows them to operate machinery with their brain. A machine as extension of a body. Distancing workers from the product of their labour, so Delany argues, leads to a lack of satisfaction in one's job, to unhappiness, and ultimately depression. It's an idea that runs parallel to Marx' ideas on capital. Just as separating workers from the product of their labour, separating them from the means of production has undesirable consequences for society. Delany's society has addressed these issues and while class still exists - Marx would be disappointed - the people are better for it. It's a future that moves away from automation and computerisation. Delany nods at Asimov's work but clearly takes a different route for his future.

Delany overlays these reflections on society, politics and economy with a story of rivalry. A merchant prince and a pirate lock horns over Illyrion. The outcome of their struggle could reshape the galaxy and both men have very different opinions on what that shape should be. To raise the stakes even further there is a personal element to their conflict as well. Grievances go deep and in the scenes where the rivals meet, the tension ranges from barely suppressed to outright, naked hatred. The interesting thing about this conflict is that Delany makes it galaxy spanning and deeply personal at the same time. Delany draws them larger than life but it is still a nice bit of characterisation.

What struck me most about the novel though, and I suppose the same is true for Babel-17, is the prose. There is so much urgency in the text. The novel reads like Delany had to get the story out. The prose drives the story on relentlessly. It does not have the same attention to poetry and linguistics as Babel-17 does - that novel deals with an alien language after all - but for all that, the writing is something special. Delany's work hit the genre hard and his prose is a very important factor in that.

If I had to pick a favourite I would probably pick Babel-17, simply because the subject appealed to me more. Nova is a superb example of what the new wave accomplished in the genre however. It's a story that on the surface connects with much of what has gone before in the genre. If you look under the surface however, new ideas, elements and themes enter into the narrative. Add to that Delany's distinct voice and you have a novel that is bound to attract attention. It's easy to see how this novel became as influential as it did. Nova is a novel everybody with an interest in classic science fiction should read.

Book Details
Title: Nova
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 241
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-473-211991-9
First published: 1968

The Modern World - Steph Swainston

The Modern World (2007)  is the third volume in Steph Swainston's Castle series. It was published as Dangerous Offspring in the US. That title has a nice double meaning to it but it is also a bit of a spoiler, I think I prefer the UK title. In November a new Castle novel, Fair Rebel,  will appear that continues the story of Castle's struggle against the insects. It's probably a good thing I arrived late to this series. While the novel has a strong story arc of its own, it leaves the reader with some very interesting questions to be answered as well. Arriving late saved me a nine years wait. For those who did have to wait, the synopsis released for Fair Rebel hints at getting at least some of the answers in that book.

Castle has been on the defensive against the insects for most of the many centuries they have spent fighting them. Frost, Castle's architect, has now found a way to push them back. By constructing a large dam, a recently lost area is flooded in hopes of driving the insects out. This offensive is hailed in the media as a turning point in their struggle. A triumph of technology over the insects and the beginning of a campaign to reclaim the lost lands. Victory, so the reporters are told, is almost assured. Nobody seems to realize that flooding a large area of insect infested land is in fact a monumentally stupid thing to do. Until it is too late.

The novel opens with a fine bit of Castle propaganda and public perception is definitely a theme in this book. How the population sees Castle and the emperor himself is hugely important to the characters and playing the media is one tool in Castle's arsenal. It's one of those areas where Swainston's world is very modern, a huge contrast with its military technology. The press conference is one in a series of scenes in the novel where characters misdirect, mislead or tell bald faced lies. Lying, misleading, manipulating, -  being immortal doesn't make one a better person it would seem.

The novel has two main narrative strands. The first deals with the insects and Castle's attempt to push them back. It quickly turns into the largest military operation Fourlands has ever seen. Swainston makes sure the reader understands the enormous strain being placed on Castle and Fourlands as a whole in mounting such a huge campaign. It is such an enormous undertaking that some see it as a sign of the end of times. Especially when the emperor leaves Castle for the first time in ages. The focus is as much on what it takes to field such an army as it is on the actual fighting. The way Swainston describes just how unwieldy such a large force is, and how devastating the consequences of a wrong move can be, is impressive.

Despite my admiration for Swainston's grasp of logistics, I thought the second strand the more interesting of the two. Internal conflicts in Fourlands are a theme throughout the books and The Modern World is no exception. In this case the main source of conflict is the troubled relationship between Lightning, Castle's archer, and his mortal daughter Cyan. One has lived well over a thousand years, the other is seventeen. You can't even say it is a generational conflict, they are ages apart. It is telling that Jant, who at just over two centuries old considers himself young for an immortal, can more easily see things from Cyan's perspective than from that of one of his fellow Castle members.

Of course this connection with Cyan also tells us a bit about his character. She may have some legitimate complaints about how she is raised, that doesn't take away from the fact that she is a spoilt brat, and a rather clueless one at that. She probably appeals to Jant's rebellious streak. The eventual resolution of the conflict should make him think though. In the end his actions surprise them all. It leaves Jant with one of several complicated questions to consider at the end of the book.

Some five years have passed since the events in No Present Like Time (2005) and Jant, while still clean, is still feeling the pull of the drug he was addicted to. Swainston again shows us almost the entire novel from his perspective - one chapter is seen from Lightning's perspective - and in a few places conveys the message to the reader he is an unreliable narrator. It's a constant in these three books but what is different about The Modern World is that we get to see a number of characters very bluntly speak their mind. Jant is fairly accepting of the structure of Castle and his place in it. Perhaps even to the point of ignoring the oddities in the emperor's decisions. Sometimes an outsider perspective can be refreshing indeed.

Castle is not quite what it appears to be seems to be the message of this book. Don't believe everything you are told. Don't take things at face value. Swainston makes us question just about everything we think we know about Castle and Fourlands. There obviously is a lot more to this tale, which makes it all the more surprising that the author went on to write a prequel about Jant's early years next. You can feel Castle is at a turning point, even if it takes a while for the full impact to be felt. The Modern World deepens the reader's understanding of Fourlands and Castle in ways neither of the previous two books did. It is without a doubt my favourite of the three novels in this omnibus.

Book Details
Title: The Modern World, part three of the Castle Omnibus
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 302 of 867
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09125-2
First published: 2007

No Present Like Time - Steph Swainston

A Dutch edition of Steph Swainston's short story The Wheel of Fortune was my introduction to her writing. I decided quickly I needed to read more of her work after that, so I got a copy of the Castle trilogy. The books were originally published as individual volumes but I own the omnibus edition. I decided to review them separately rather than as one work. No Present Like Time is the second volume in the trilogy. It is set some time after the events in The Year of Our War and again follows the exploits of Jant, Messenger of the Circle. The novel was published in 2005 and was followed in 2007 by a third volume, The Modern World in the UK and Dangerous Offspring in the US, which I hope to get to later this year.

The war with the insects is far from won, but the immediate crisis Jant faced in the previous book has passed. That is not to say everything is quiet in the Castle. Infighting, bickering and challenges to positions of various members of the circle are constant pressures on the immortals. When the Castle's swordsman looses a challenge all hell breaks loose. To make matters more complicated, the Sailor has recently discovered a group of islands inhabited by a displaced population from the Fourlands. The emperor wishes to extend his influence and sends an expedition to meet with the locals. Jant is ordered along. He will have to conquer his fear of ships and the sea to make the journey. It's an experience with far reaching consequences for both Jant and the Castle.

In the previous novel, Jant was a full blown addict and the structure of the story showed that. It was basically a series of coherent snapshots in between trips. On the one hand it is a great way to express the experience of someone drawn so deeply into addiction but on the other, it made the story a bit of a ramble. At the beginning of this book, Jant is clean. He quickly slips back into dependency when he is faced with one of his biggest fears though. It's a pretty hard relapse but, despite the occasional overdose, Jant doesn't sink to the depths he reached in the first book. All of this does the narrative structure of the book a world of good. Swainston does use frequent flashbacks, but on the whole the story flows more smoothly than The Year of Our War.

The archipelago Jant visited has been out of touch with the rest of the world for some 1500 years. It has developed a peaceful society, led by a senate in a way that reminded me of the Roman republic. After such a long time, stories of insects and the emperor San are considered myths and the locals abhor the idea of one man wielding that much power. The confrontation between Castle and the islanders is comparable with what happens when a technological advanced civilization meets one that is less so. It is messy, bloody and the situation is not exactly improved when a third party decides to take advantage of the islanders' naivete.

Jant also gives us more insight into the psyche of an immortal. He thinks much on how they are ruled by fear. As we are shown in the opening scenes of the book and as the title of the book suggests, immortality is a gift that can be taken away in a moment. The pressure to keep on top of your game, and if possible to rig it in your favour is always present and to a point twists the immortals. What I found most interesting about this, and Swainston does hint at it in the book, is what happens when technology overtakes them. What good is a sailor in an age of steamships. Or a swordsman facing a gun? Or a messenger when they invent the telegraph. I wonder if Swainston is going to look into that in subsequent books. Given the level of technology in the book it is possible.

Another internal struggle for Jant is the one with his past. We get a number of flashbacks to scenes from his youth. In one of them we even find out what happened to him on the road to Castle after we leave him at the end of The Wheel of Fortune. He has, to put it mildly, had an interesting childhood. We also get a bit of backstory on how he met his current wife and why their relationship is strained at the moment. It's in this area Swainston really pushes Jant's character development. To untangle the web of dependencies, resentment and desire proves to be quite a challenge.

Between the internal struggles and the exploring being done in this book, there isn't that much happening in the centuries long war against the insects. They play a minor part in the story. In fact, we only get to see one of them. That particular specimen is destructive enough though. Jant may have brought victory a bit closer with one of his decisions towards the end of the book. The emperor doesn't appear to be pleased with his judgement though. He may even have reason to worry.

I enjoyed this second book more than the first. Where the frayed threads of Jant's life make for a bumpy ride in the first novel, this book reads a lot more smoothly. He has a bit more time to reflect on the state of the world, giving the reader a lot more insight into what is actually going on. Swainston leaves quite a lot dangling for the final volume. It has plenty of potential to be a proper climax to the series. I can see all sorts of directions in which Swainston could take the story. Swainston has not only created a fascinating world, she also keeps her readers guessing. How many fantasy novels can you think of that are truly unpredictable? I can't think of many. This sense of unpredictability is perhaps the series' greatest achievement.

Book Details
Title: No Present Like Time, part two of the Castle Omnibus
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 294 of 867
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09125-2
First published: 2005

The Year of Our War - Steph Swainston

Earlier this year I read Steph Swainston's short story The Wheel of Fortune, which has recently appeared in Dutch translation. It was my introduction to the world of Castle. While a short story can't possibly convey all the nuances of Swainston's creation, it was more than enough to convince me to try a full novel. The individual titles in the Castle trilogy are a bit hard to come by at the moment, but an omnibus edition is readily available. Besides the trilogy there is a fourth book called Above the Snowline (2010) available. A fifth novel, Fair Rebel,  is expected later this year. In an interview I did with her earlier this year, Swainston confirmed that she is working on a sixth Castle novel.

Jant is a member of the Circle, a group of immortals lead by the emperor, tasked with watching over the world until the creator returns. His role is that of the Messenger. Being the only immortal capable of flight, he uses his wings to get around the world quickly, delivering messages and reporting on what he sees. The world has come under increasing pressure from an insect invasion. Where previously they seemed content behind their wall, recently they have been pushing deeper into lands held by humanoid species. Their advance seems unstoppable and soon it becomes clear the insects won't stop until they've colonised the entire world. On top of that threat, Castle has to deal with internal conflicts as well. As the insects advance, Jant becomes ever more desperate to find a way to defeat them and restore some semblance of order in the world.

Although the author doesn't particularly care for this label, Swainston's novels have often been characterized as New Weird. Whatever you may think of that, her books  are definitely not run-of-the-mill fantasy. The world is populated by several humanoid species and interbreeding is possible. The technology level in the novel is mostly fairly modern but such things as internal combustion engines and gunpowder (or other heavy explosives) are missing. Wars therefore, are still fought with swords, pikes and crossbows and transport depends on horses and sailing ships. I had to adjust my mental image of what this world looked like several times because of this curious mix of older and modern technology.

The book is written in the first person. We see the entire story through the eyes of Jant. He is something of an anti-hero. Where in The Wheel of Fortune, set chronologically some two centuries before the bulk of The Year of Our War, Jant is just dealing drugs, by the time we meet him again, he is heavily addicted. The only thing that has saved him from an overdose is the fact that he is immortal. At times, his constant craving for his next shot makes him intensely annoying and rather pathetic. On the other hand he is well aware of what is going on in the world and, while not always completely voluntary, he does put his life on the line during the insect onslaught in more ways than most of his compatriots are aware of. He has, in other words, quite a complicated personality. Some readers might be put off by the whiny side of him and his constant worries about where his next shot will come from. I thought it was a very good bit of characterization though.

Deeply flawed yet heroic is a pattern we see with other immortals as well. Swainston portrays them as larger than life. They assume a kind of Olympic quality if you will. There is a definite parallel between Jant and Hermes in fact. The immortals' internal bickering sends shock waves through the world and ends up killing a great many people. The members of Castle are very human in some respects. Pettiness, power struggles and jealousy are part of every day life at the court of the emperor.The various currents at court adds to the complexity of the tale and gives the world more depth. Throughout the novel there are hints of the politics in the various nations as well, leaving quite a bit to be explored in further novels.

While I liked the worldbuilding and what Swainston does with the main character, structurally it is not a particularly strong novel. Not to put too fine a point on it, it rambles along here and there. Swainston uses flashbacks to give us an impression of Jant's past in some places that do more to disrupt the flow of the story set in the present than enlighten us. Throughout the story you can also feel the strain of having only one point of view character. Jant is constantly lost in the fog of war. Events in some places in the world simply outpace Jant and he frequently  has to adjust to developments he neither foresaw or was present to witness. It's reasonable when looked at from Jant's point of view but for the reader it is not always a satisfying experience. I also felt that the ending of the novel was fairly abrupt and left an awful lot of story lines open for the next volume.

In some ways The Year of Our War is a rocky start to the trilogy, but also one that shows a lot of potential. The setting is absolutely unique and after reading this book you can't possibly not want to learn more. The story is a dark one, but it doesn't overly rely on shock tactics to keep the reader's attention. Swainston is clearly interested in the darker side of human nature and her main character is a big part of that. His addiction and personality make him a character that is guaranteed to provoke a reaction in the reader. Probably not a positive one in all readers but if you can stomach a main character you can't always sympathise with, he is bound to take you for quite a ride. I'll be reading the second volume in the not too distant future to see where he will lead us and of course to find out if he can get the monkey off his back.

Book Details
Title: The Year of Our War, part one of the Castle Omnibus
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 267 of 867
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09125-2
First published: 2004

Fevre Dream - George R.R. Martin

Fevre Dream (1982) is Martin's third novel. It follows his début Dying of the Light (1977) and his fixup collaboration with Lisa Tuttle Windhaven (1981). All three are decidedly different beasts. Dying of the Light is a science fiction set in Martin's never officially named Thousand Worlds setting. Windhaven is nominally science fiction as well but much more to the fantasy side of the genre. Fevre Dream is a historical horror novel. For his fourth novel, The Armageddon Rag (1983), he would shoot off in another direction again. A choice that ended up almost wrecking his career as a novelist. Fevre Dream however, was a commercial and critical success. Written in a time when horror was on a high, it earned Martin Locus and World Fantasy Award nominations in 1983.

The Mississippi river system: 1857. Abner Marsh is a riverboat captain down on his luck. Where he once owned a profitable business, owning several steamboats, disaster has struck and he is down to one, severely outdated boat. His luck seems to be changing when he is approached by the peculiar but obviously wealthy Joshua York. Together they build the finest steamboat on the river, and Abner is dead set on proving it is the fastest as well. His partner has some strange conditions for bankrolling the new boat however. Conditions that seem to make little sense to Abner and get in the way of him running his company. Soon York's nocturnal habits and unexplained trips arouse suspicion. Joshua York is clearly not what he pretends to be.

There are a few things that usually don't attract me in fantasy and science fiction, and Martin has written all of them at some point in his career. Time travel (Under Siege, Unsound Variations), comic book style narratives (Wild Cards) and vampire stories tend to make me hesitate to pick up a book. Fevre Dream is a vampire novel. This type of novel has undergone quite a change in the years since Martin wrote this book. Martin wrote vampires in the tradition of Bram Stoker. Dangerous, powerful, charismatic, evil and very hard to kill. Powerful individuals they may be, the modern world is catching up to them. Their aversion to sunlight makes them vulnerable, and places to hide and feed on the population unnoticed are harder to find. The American frontier is still a wild place however, and a group of vampires is making use of that. What they do is horrific and Martin doesn't spare us the horrific details.

There is a bit of a contradiction in Martin's treatment of the vampire mythos. The human characters in the book seem to be aware of Stoker's ideas on what vampires are some forty years before Dracula was published. Joshua even mentions Vlad Țepeș to Abner and some of the characteristics and weaknesses of his race as described by Stoker  in one of their conversations. It's a peculiar lapse in what otherwise appears to be a well researched novel.

Most of the novel is set on the Mississippi river in 1857. Martin has done his research on the history of transport on the river and describes the atmosphere in the towns along the Mississippi very well. It is a highly dynamic place, still wild enough to be considered the frontier, but a place where the impact of modern technology and industrialization are beginning to be felt. Along the river the conflict that will explode into the American civil war is already brewing. Martin doesn't shy away from showing the appalling racism that was part of every day life along the river and still echoes through American society. Slavery and the practice of hunting escaped slaves feature in the novel and it contains a lot of language nobody in their right mind would consider using today. Martin uses this part of history as more than a backdrop. Historical developments shape the story and the main character. Martin has a knack for researching a period and then using it to create a great story. Which makes it all the more of a shame he never finished Black and White and Red All Over.

Martin's preference for morally ambiguous characters is well known and it shows up in this novel as well. Particularly over the issue of slavery. Although Abner, being from a northern state, doesn't own slaves himself, he doesn't really object to the practice either. He hires a mate who can keep 'the darkies' in line and doesn't seem to think they are good for anything but the hardest, lowest paid jobs. Not until his clash with the group of vampires, who see humans as cattle, sometimes useful but mostly food, does he begin to appreciate the injustice of their position. His attitude towards Native Americans, only very briefly discussed in the novel, is similarly racist and ignorant. Martin uses it to develop his character to an extent but you have to be able to stomach a whole lot of racism to appreciate this story.

The dynamic between two other main characters, Joshua and his nemesis Damon is another expression of Martin's preference for complex characters. Damon is what you'd expect of a vampire. Joshua on the other hand isn't. In his struggle with Damon he develops into a tragic character. Perhaps his pointless battering against Damon's power is a bit too dramatic for some but it does suit the southern gothic atmosphere of the book very well. He is pulled between two ways of life and even though we see the effect of that exclusively through Abner's eyes, it comes across very well.

A while back I reread Martin's career spanning collection Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective. In the 1970s Martin produced a couple of stories that were inspired by poems. And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975) takes the title from a poem by Kipling, in A Song for Lya (1974) a poem by Matthew Arnold is referenced. Joshua York, it would seem, is a fan of British  poetry as well. He references Percy Bysshe Shelley (in particular Ozymandias) and in more detail Lord Byron. Abner is not impressed by York's 'gimp Britisher' but later on in the book it grows on him. Martin must have had an inspirational English teacher to let it influence his work to such an extent. I don't think I've seen any traces of it in his post-Hollywood material though.

Martin may be a fine writer but he didn't convince me to try more vampire novels with Fevre Dream. In the end it is his handling of the characters and the historical backdrop that carry the novel for me. The vampire story itself is rather predictable for a novel published before the Urban Fantasy boom and the introduction of glittering vampires. It's entertaining but of the novels Martin produced in his pre-Hollywood period, this is not the one that stands out. Ironically perhaps, I vastly prefer The Armageddon Rag, the novel that almost wrecked Martin's career. Not everybody will agree with me though. If you like your vampires without glitter, in the hands of an author who can tell a good story, Fevre Dream is worth a try.

Book Details
Title: Fevre Dream
Author: G.R.R. Martin
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 350
Year: 2001
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-85798-331-9
First published: 1982

Zima Blue and Other Stories - Alastair Reynolds

A new year on Random Comments traditionally opens with a review of one of Allastair Reynolds' books. This year I picked his short story collection Zima Blue and Other Stories. The first edition of this collection was published in 2006 by Night Shade Books. In 2009 an expanded British edition appeared from Gollancz. I have read the Gollancz version of the collection which includes four additional stories. The stories in this collection are all set outside his Revelation Space universe. Most of the short fiction in that universe can be found in the collections Galactic North (2006) and Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003). Several of the stories are linked though. The collection contains the three Merlin stories for instance, as well as two stories featuring the character Carrie Clay and two stories set in a many worlds interpretation of Cardiff.

The collection opens strong with The Real Story (2002), the first Carrie Clay story. She is a journalist chasing the crew of the first manned mission to Mars. One that went horribly wrong but turned into a heroic tale of survival. The crew disappeared shortly after but is rumoured to still be alive. It's a story about survival mechanisms, about the creation of legends and about the burden they put on the people that are the source of legends. It's heroic and tragic at the same time. Emotionally very powerful.

Beyond the Aquila Rift (2005) features an abandoned alien transport system that enables travel faster than the speed of light. Nobody really understands how the system works. It is highly reliable but every once in a while something goes wrong and a ship ends up in an unexpected place. The Blue Goose is such a ship and its captain has a hard time dealing with it. This story reminds me of Frederik Pohl's Gateway (1977). Beyond the Aquila Rift is a bit of a mindfuck, constantly pulling the rug from under the main character. He deals with issues of guilt but also has problems accepting his situation. It makes clever use of a first person perspective to keep the reader guessing.

The next story is the oldest in the collection and one of the very first stories Reynolds managed to sell. Enola (1991) deals with artificial intelligence. It features a warmachine that manages to evolve beyond its original programming and function after it becomes apparent there is no reason to fight on. Going beyond design and/or physical capabilities using extensive modifications is an idea that Reynolds would use later on. In the afterword he professes to be fond of this story but compared to the other material in this collection it is not a particularly strong piece.

Signal to Noise (2006) and Cardiff Afterlife (2008) are two linked stories, bases on the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, an idea that Reynolds uses in other stories as well. In these stories it is possible to briefly make contact with alternate realities that have just branched off from the timeline of the observer. The further these futures drift apart, the harder it gets to maintain contact.  In Signal to Noise the main character's wife is killed in an accident. He gets to spend a week with her in a different reality before that door closes forever. It's a very sad tale, with a bitter sweet ending. Cardiff Afterlife is a much shorter piece. It gives us a brief look at a Cardiff destroyed by a terrorist attack. A very relevant theme these days. It is so brief it doesn't achieve the depth of the first story in this setting however. Reynolds' short fiction tends to work better if it's long.

The next three stories, Hideaway (2000), Minla's Flowers (2007) and Merlin's Gun (2000) are linked as well. They are the kind of signature space opera that most readers associate Reynolds with. Stories set on the vast canvas of space, in far futures, usually featuring technology that Arthur C. Clarke would think of as magic. They are presented by internal chronology in the collection. Of the three, Minla's Flowers is by far the strongest. It's a tragedy in which the main character Merlin arrives on a planet that has just reached the stage where aircraft have begun to appear. He knows that in a few decades the planet will be destroyed. To save the people on the planet, technology will have to develop to the space ages fast.

Early in the story Merlin meets the young girl Minla, whom he presents with an exotic flower every time they meet. As the story progresses and Minla ages, she develops into a leader who will sacrifice millions to help a handful of people escape the approaching catastrophe. Characterisation is usually the weaker element in Reynolds' novels but in this collection he manages to hit the bull's eye a few times. The relationship between Minla and Merlin is very well done. This story may well be the strongest in the collection.

At this point I felt the collection was running out of steam a bit. The next two stories didn't do much for me. Angels of Ashes (1999) is a story that mixes religion and quantum mechanics. The religious part turns out to not quite be what one of its priests expects. A cynical view on prophets I guess. Not really my cup of tea. Spirey and the Queen (1996) is the only story in this collection I had read before. It was included in John Joseph Adams' anthology Federations (2009). It's full blown space opera in which we encounter artificial intelligence based on social insects. It's a fairly fast-paced pieces, with plenty of interesting ideas on space exploration, war in space and robotics. An entertaining read but not the strongest in the collection.

Understanding Space and Time (2005) is one of the longer pieces in the collection and in my opinion one of the highlights. It a story about a man stranded on Mars. He is forced the watch as the population on earth is wiped out. When his last companion on the station dies, he realizes he may well be the last human left alive.Just when it looks he has gotten himself killed in a pointless trip outside the station, aliens arrive to rescue him. It's a story about madness, loneliness and isolation but also one about seeking understanding. Structurally, I liked this story best. Reynolds end the story where he started, albeit millions of years later. The process of expanding his mind to probe the mysteries of space-time ever deeper and then going back to his origins runs parallel to a theory in cosmology that predicts than the universe will fall back in on itself again. I wonder if Reynolds had than in mind when he wrote it.

The final three stories in the collection didn't really grab me. Digital to Analogue (1992) is one of his earlier pieces. It mixes music with a new disease that spreads though certain sounds. Seen though the drugged and increasingly desperate main character, I found it to be a confusing read. Everlasting (2004) is the only story in the collection that isn't strictly speaking science fiction. It uses the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, but only to illustrate the unstable state of mind of one of the main characters. It leaves the reader with the question what if he was right? In Zima Blue (2005) we end where we started the collection, with journalist Carrie Clay. This time she meets with one of the galaxy's most famous artists who is not quite what he appears to be. It's a story about art and artificial intelligence and the question of they will be able to learn to be creative. I didn't time the artist was as interesting a character as the astronaut in The Real Story.

Zima Blue and Other Stories offers a good overview of what Reynolds has produced in the 1990s and 2000s outside the Revelation Space universe. There is some of his signature big canvas space opera but also a few pieces that show he can write more varied material than that. As with most collections, I didn't like all stories it contained equally. On the whole it is a solid collection though. One that fans of Reynolds' novels will appreciate. Most of his short fiction from after 2009 remains uncollected. Maybe it is time for a new collection. I would certainly be interested in reading it.

Book Details
Title: Zima Blue and Other Stories
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 455
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-08455-1
First published: 2006, 2009

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

Last week I read Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest and in that novel the influence of Arthur C. Clarke is unmistakable. Since I am waiting for some review copies to arrive at the moment, I thought I'd reread something by  Clarke this week. Rendezvous with Rama was first published in 1973 and won him the BSFA, Nebula, Campbell, Hugo and Locus Awards. It is regarded as one of his masterworks, perhaps only surpassed in popularity by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Childhood's End (1953). The novel spawned three sequels written in collaboration with Gentry Lee. Which is to say Lee did the writing and Clarke limited himself to reading and editing. I never read any of the sequels, from what I have heard they don't reach the level of the original, but Rendezvous with Rama is something of a favourite of mine.

In the year 2131 astronomers spot a large object entering the solar system. At first they dismiss it as another comet or asteroid but when someone takes a closer look it becomes apparent that the structure is not natural. It is travelling at such a speed that only one ship in the solar system is close enough to intercept the object now christened Rama. The space ship Endeavour, captained by Commander Bill Norton is sent to rendezvous with the strange object and to explore its interior.

When you think about it, the popularity of this novel at the time is a bit peculiar. The New Wave had already washed over the genre but Clarke's writing was still firmly founded in the golden age. His grasp of physics and mathematics is impressive but his attention to characterisation is minimal, his prose straightforward and interest in anything other than the natural sciences limited. Clarke's early work may have had some spiritual undertone, by the time he wrote this novel, his work is mostly rational. You could even say that there is not much of a  plot to  Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke pretty much tells us what the expedition sees on Rama, how they overcome several technical problems and adds a bit of speculation on the builders of the object. It is all very simple in a way. Maybe even deceptively simple.

Rendezvous with Rama is a quintessential Big Dumb Object novel. What it excels at is achieving a sense of wonder in the reader. Although opinions on what this phrase actually means differ, it is something of a holy grail for golden age science fiction. In this novel, written many years after the end of this period in the history of science fiction, Clarke manages to make it tangible. The descriptions of Rama, aided by the clarity of the prose, will have the reader in awe. The sheer scale of the object is described in a way to make the reader feel insignificant In fact, Rendezvous with Rama is probably the only novel I've ever read that manages to make the reader experience vertigo.

The novel humbles the reader in another way as well. Although Rama clearly has a purpose in the solar system, it is entirely uninterested in humanity. It doesn't attempt to communicate or to investigate. It just does what it planned to do and moves on. After being the centre of the universe for all of history, humanity is relegated to a footnote. They can stand and watch in awe, they can speculate and investigate, but they can't match Rama's feats. Clarke goes to far as to make humanity look petty when the Mercurians authorities take it upon themselves to attempt to destroy what they don't understand. In this way, it expresses an idea that couldn't be further removed from the one that is the crux of The Dark Forest. Liu at the same time admires him and portrays his vision on extraterrestrial life as naive.

One surprising aspect of the novel is the humour Clarke has put into it. When the true nature of Rama becomes apparent, a council is set up to guide the expedition to the object. He uses it to mock scientists and politicians alike. In the council the process of science takes a back seat and petty politics take over. Clarke observes these proceedings with a kind of wry amusement. However much human society will change in the future, he doesn't have high hopes in this area it would seem.

The spectacular views Clarke offers, combined with today's technology could make this story into a visually spectacular movie. It has been optioned in the past and Morgan Freeman has expressed interest in making Rendezvous with Rama into a movie. It hasn't happened yet and as far as I can tell it is firmly stuck in development hell. Apparently there isn't even a script yet. Probably, someday, there will be a movie but it might be a bit of a wait.

I'm unreasonably fond of this novel. It is something of a throwback to an earlier age of science fiction, published in a time when the genre had already moved on to other, and in my opinion more interesting, things. The portrayal of future society seems simplistic, the characterisation practically non-existent, and the story arc lacks a clear climax. The list of flaws in this novel is long. And yet, it does one thing so supremely well that all these flaws recede into the background when reading it. Ill-defined as the much looked for sense of wonder may be, Clarke nailed it in this novel. Rendezvous with Rama is not Clarke's best novel, nor his most interesting but, it will remain a favourite of mine.

Book Details
Title: Rendezvous with Rama
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Gpllancz
Pages: 252
Year: 2006
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-07733-1
First published: 1973

Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective - George R.R. Martin (part 3)

The continuation of my review on George R.R. Martin's massive collection Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective. You can read the first part here and the second part here.

The Siren of Hollywood

Tuf Voyaging was a success and Martin even sold a second book that, as you will already have guessed, never got written. Tuf didn't bring in enough to get Martin back on his feet financially and so he moved on to other projects. The Armageddon Rag, while derailing his career as a novelist, did provide him with an opportunity in Hollywood. He sold the film rights of the novel and got to know people working in television. Soon, Martin was writing scripts for the second incarnation of the horror show Twilight Zone. That show got canceled rather quickly and Martin moved on to writing for a new series called Beauty and the Beast, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. It ran for three seasons and Martin wrote a total of fourteen episodes. After the series got canceled, he tried to pitch a number of projects. One even got to the stage where a pilot was shot but eventually none of them ever made it to the small screen.

Martin worked in Hollywood for ten years and to cover this period he includes two of his scripts. These texts are mostly dialogue with brief descriptions of actions and location in between. They also include information on camera angles, closeups, fadeouts and the like, making for a very unusual reading for someone who is used to novels and short stories. The first, The Road Less Traveled,  is a Twilight Zone episode. This one did make it to the small screen but was so horribly mutilated in the cutting room that Martin intensely disliked the episode that was eventually broadcast. He includes the full script as he had intended it to be shot. 

The story is about a man who dodged the draft in the late 1960s and relocated to Canada. He later returns and settles into a career as a teacher when he is suddenly confronted with a version of himself that did go to Vietnam. It probably works better on television than on paper. Shoot it properly and it can be a very suspenseful story. If you read the script you really need to try and put it on a screen in your head to make it work.

The second script included in this section is called Doorways. It is the pilot for a series Martin had hoped to make for ABC. The concept of the show was based on two travelers journeying between alternate versions of earth. The script Martin included is a bit different from the one that was eventually shot. In the second half of the pilot, the characters move to a different world and where Martin had imagined a post-apocalyptic world in the original script, they later changed it to a world without oil. If you look really hard you can still find that pilot. It was released on VHS in 1993. Despite it being quite a good pilot, the show was never made. To add insult to injury, 1995 saw the premiere of a new show on Fox called Sliders, with pretty much the same concept. It is one of many what might have beens in this collection.

Whatever caused ABC to cancel the show, it most likely wasn't the writing. The pilot is quite fun to watch and this alternative script would have worked well too in my opinion. I have no doubt that this series would have done well. Doorways is not the only project Martin tried to develop after Beauty and the Beast was canceled. The collection Quartet: Tales From the Crossroads contains another script for a pilot that was never produced and Martin tried to rework several of his short stories for television as well. In the end it all came to nothing. Maybe his disappointing experiences in Hollywood made him hold out on selling the rights for A Song of Ice and Fire for so long.

Doing the Wild Card Shuffle

Martin didn't completely stop producing works in print during his years in Hollywood. He wrote several short stories in this period, but his most important side project was undoubtedly Wild Cards. Wild Cards is a shard world in which an alien virus hit New York City in 1946. Of those infected, 90% died a gruesome death, 9% was mutilated in unimaginable ways and the remaining 1% developed superpowers. The series is clearly inspired by superhero comics, allowing Martin to return to his earliest love. Most of the books in the series are what Martin calls mosaic novels, with six to eight people doing the writing and Martin editing the whole thing into one story. The first volume of the series appeared in 1987 and by the time Dreamsongs was published, sixteen Wild Cards volumes had been released with a seventeenth on the way. Right now there are twenty-two volumes available with a twenty-third expected in the not too distant future.

Martin includes two of his own contributions to the series in this collection. The first  is Shell Games (1987) from the first book in the series. In that volume, the writers cover the years between the release of the virus and the 1980s, making it more of a short story collection than a mosaic novel. As such Shell Games can be read as a standalone easily. It introduces one of Martin's own characters, the Great and Powerful Turtle. When we meet him he is a boy with impressive telekinetic gifts but no idea of how to use them. His childhood friend helps him figure it out however. The story shows us the dark side of New York and some of the more brutal effects of the virus. It is a pretty dark story as many of the other Wild Cards stories would be.

The second piece is called From the Journal of Xavier Desmond and is taken from the fourth book in the series, Aces Abroad (1988). An expanded edition has recently been reissued by Tor but it is still on my to read list. In Aces Abroad Martin provides the parts of the story that ties the other contributions together. As the title suggests it is entirely written in the form of diary entries and not quite as readable without context as Shell Games. Desmond refers to a lot of affairs the reader of Dreamsongs doesn't get to see as well as things from the previous three volumes. It gives the reader some insight into the process of editing one of these volumes, but for the reader who isn't familiar with the series the storyline of Desmond himself (he is dying and making his peace with the world and the fact that the virus affected his life to a large degree) is a bit thin.

The Heart in Conflict

The final section of Dreamsongs contains a number of stories from the mid 1980s onwards. It is a mix, stories Martin felt were important but couldn't really be placed in any of the other sections. To find something that unifies them, he refers to William Faulkner's speech at the Nobel Prize winners banquet in 1950 in which he said that "the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing". Martin agrees with that. He doesn't want to be limited by genre conventions or the genre/literature divide. What interests him is the motivation of his characters and that is what has made A Song of Ice and Fire such a resounding success. This section contains six stories, generally longer pieces, and takes up almost 300 pages in my edition of Dreamsongs.

It opens with Under Siege (1985), which is the rewritten version of The Fortress we encountered in the first section. In this story a desperate group of time traveling nuclear war survivors try to stop the Soviet Union from forming and the siege of Sveaborg might just be the turning point in history they are looking for. I'm not too fond of time travel stories, I just can't wrap my head around the logic most of them employ, but I must admit this one is pretty good. Very little is left from the original historical piece but there is enough for people familiar with this bit of history to sink their teeth in.

The Sikin Trade (1988) is probably the longest piece in the entire collection. It is a horror novella that Martin had tried to develop for television at one point. I have a feeling it might make a better movie than a series though. The story is set in a decaying industrial town that is shaken by the brutal murder of a young woman in a wheelchair. Memories of a series of murders twenty years back begin to stir. Questions about those killings remained unanswered at the time. Now PI Randi Wade is looking into the matter on behalf of her friend Willie who knew the victim. During the investigation she finds out things about the city she has lived in her entire life that shock her to the core.

This novella is one of the strongest pieces in the collection. It is a classic horror story of the type monsters-are-among-us. It is sometimes quite bloody but Martin mostly focuses on what these events do with his two main characters. They are good examples of the flawed heroes Martin likes to write about. It's very well paced and has a great climax. As horror stories go, I don't think you can improve much on Martin's execution in The Skin Game. Someone really should make it into a movie.

Next up is Unsound Variations (1982). A story inspired by chess. Martin clearly uses his experience in organizing tournaments in this story. It is about a man invited to visit one of his old teammates who has become fabulously wealthy after they last saw each other in college. They don't particularly like each other. Rich he may be, but he wasted the opportunity to win against one of the best university chess teams in the nation by giving away a match he had already practically won. It's a strange story that combines chess with time travel. The supposed won position becomes an obsession for the characters and while I don't know that much about chess, just the very basics really, Martin manges to describe it in a way that drags you along with the characters desperately trying to find a solution to the problem.

The Glass Flower (1986) is Martin's final story in the Thousand Worlds universe. Of course he didn't actually say he wouldn't write any more but it doesn't look likely he will return to it any time soon. In the early 1990s he did try his hand at a Thousand Worlds novel but ended up writing A Game of Thrones instead. Maybe he should return to it because I can't say I particularly like this story. It doesn't really seem like a fitting conclusion to a series that produced so much interesting work.

The story is nominally a science fiction story but takes such surreal turns that for a lot of readers it will stretch the limits of what they consider SF. It deals with immortallity and one of the legends of Matin's future history finally makes an appearance in person. Kleronomas, who by the time the story opens has already lived many centuries, shows up on the doorstep of Cyrain, who deals in eternal life on an out of the way planet on the edge of human explored space. He is not looking for eternal life however, that is something he already possesses, he is looking for death. Both of the main characters in the story strike me as incredibly jaded. It doesn't make for pleasant reading. It's also a fairly slow moving piece. With eternity at your disposal I guess there is no need to hurry. Definitely not my favourite story in the collection.

More than a thousand pages in Martin treats us to a little bit of Westeros. The Hedge Knight is one of the prequel novellas about Dunk and Egg. It is set some ninety years before the main series and besides a few references to both Dunk and Egg in the main novels, the novellas are very much their own story. You can read them independently. They share the background of Westeros and the brutality of life in that world with the main series though. These novellas are quite good reads. It is interesting to see the kingdom under the Targaryens and in these stories we get to see society from one who starts pretty much at the bottom. As prequels go, it is quite successful. Martin has written three of these novellas at this point and wants to write more. They have been postponed while he works on the main series though. Yet another project that I would not mind seeing Martin return to.

The final story in the collection is another horror tale. Portraits of his Children (1987) is about a writer so caught up in his writing and fictional characters that he alienates the people around him. The last one to leave is his daughter. Alone in his house and unable to continue his writing, he broods about his family, his writing and the arguments. Then, a package arrives from his daughter. It contains a surprisingly accurate picture of one of the characters from his books. For the main characters of the story, the line between fiction, fiction based on real people and events and real life is blurred. They all seem to put it somewhere else and it is the root of many of their arguments. His wife and daughter frequently see  his writing as wish fulfillment or an expression of his dissatisfaction about life with them. All three of them get very bitter about it. It's a disturbing story, and probably even more so to writers. How transparant is your writing to people who know you well?

And with that we reach the end of over 1100 pages of Martin's short fiction. While I did not like every piece in the collection, I do think it succeeds in giving an overview of Martin's career up to that point. The essays Martin includes make for very interesting reading and the majority of the material included ranges from very good to outstanding. In a time when everything Martin wrote is overshadowed by A Song of Ice and Fire, and lately even more by Game of Thrones, it is good to be reminded that he is much more versatile than that. Do not let the collection's impressive size discourage you. Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective  is well worth reading. After finishing this reread I came away with the feeling I should have done it sooner.

Book Details
Title: Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective
Author: George R.R. Martin
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 1185
Year: 2007
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-08148-2
First published: 2003

Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective - George R.R. Martin (part 2)

The continuation of my review on George R.R. Martin's massive collection Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective. You can read the first part here.

The Heirs of Turtle Castle

Martin has a lot of fans who see him primarily as a fantasy writer. He also has fans who know him as a science fiction writer. Some of those were mightily upset when Martin started A Song of Ice and Fire, even accusing him of changing sides. A slightly ridiculous accusation in the face of Martin's diverse output in the 1970s and 1980s. His works often straddle genres and he has written stories that could be considered historical fiction, horror, fantasy and science fiction. In this section Martin reaches back to his early fantasies. They are quite different from his sprawling novels, but fantasy nonetheless. 

The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976) is what Martin considers to be his first pure fantasy sale. I must admit, I don't like it much. It is another story dealing with loneliness. Laren Dorr is punished by the Seven (presumably some kind of gods) to spend eternity on a planet of which he is the only inhabitant. Until Sharra, the girl who travels between worlds, arrives looking for her lost love. It is another story that was supposed to be the first in a series which would have had Sharra visit countless worlds. He never got around to writing them though. Often when I come across one of Martin's unfinished projects I wonder what the whole thing would have been like. With this story, being limited to one is fine with me. There is something melancholic about the story but Martin has done that better in other pieces.

I have already reviewed the children's version of The Ice Dragon (1980) on this blog. Martin edited the story a bit and released it for young readers in 2006. Dreamsongs contains the adult original of The Ice Dragon. Both versions are very good, but I think I like the adult version slightly better. It is written from the point of view of a little girl and there is a lot of adult stuff between the lines that the reader is meant to catch even if the main character doesn't. It works fine as a children's book but even with the light trimming Martin had to do to tone down the references to war and violence, something is lost. The story is unfortunately burdened with the debate about whether or not it is set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. After rereading it, I remain of the opinion that if you want to shoehorn it in, you probably can, but that it most certainly wasn't conceived that way.

The third story in this section is In the Lost Lands (1982), the first and only story in the series on Grey Alys. This story is a dark fairy tale in essence. Be careful what you wish for is clearly the morale of In the Lost Lands. I like Alys a lot better than Sharra. She is a powerful character involved in some very shady business. Martin is simply better at writing morally ambiguous characters. Sharra is too much of a romantic heroine for my taste. Martin has sold the movie rights of both In the Lost Lands and The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (as well as Bitterblooms from the previous section) recently so we may well see either or both on the big screen soon.

Hybrids and Horrors

In this section Martin presents six stories with a clear horror element. Half of them are not uncut horror though, but mixtures of horror and science fiction. A combination that has produced some of Martin's best work. I'm not entirely convinced by Martin's more pure horror tales though. While they are generally creepy, they seem to lack the imagination Martin is able to put into his fantasy and science fiction.

The section opens with Meathouse Man (1976). It is a story in a series that made it to three and deals with a man who is a professional corpse handler. The corpses have had their brains replaced by a device that links them to the handler. A good handler can control as many as eight at a time. They are used for hard, dirty or dangerous work. Targer is quite good at his job but his life is all work. He wants more out of it. He is looking for love. It will not surprise the readers that he is disappointed repeatedly. Meathouse Man is horrific in the fact that the corpses are seen as things to use and abuse as the handlers see fit. This includes using them for sex and the scene in which Targer explores this part of his talent is absolutely revolting. He strikes me as a character who, being surrounded by corpses most of the time, has trouble understanding his own humanity and that of others. No good can come of it of course.

Remembering Melody (1981)  is an uncut horror story about a group of people who become good friends in college. They promise to support each other should one of them ever need help. Three of the four make a life for themselves after college but the fourth ends up in a life of addiction, bad boyfriends and failed careers. She calls on the others repeatedly until they have had enough and refuse to help her. I guess you could say this story is about the consequences of broken promises. It is a decent story but I could see the clou coming a mile off when I first read it. Not my favourite in this collection.

The next story is Sandkings (1979) and of all Martin's short pieces, this is probably the most successful. It won him a Nebula and a Hugo and made him more money than most of his novels until he started writing A Song of Ice and Fire. It is a science fiction/horror hybrid set in the Thousand Worlds universe. There is an adaptation for television, a comic version and it has been reprinted more times than I care to count. If you know anything of Martin other than A Song of Ice and Fire, this is likely to be it. Despite it being one of Martin's most successful works, it is another one of those one story series. One of the many opportunities in Dreamsongs to think about what might have been had Martin followed up on this story.

The story deals with a cruel man with too much money and a habit of showing off expensive and preferably dangerous pets to his friends. When he returns from his latest and unexpectedly long business trip most of his pets have died. He sets out to find something new and ends up buying Sandkings. Cruel man that he is, he raises cruel pets and that gets him in serious trouble. The Sandkings are fascinating creatures. Figuring out their lifecycle and habits is what the story revolves around. They turn into scary creatures, partly because Martin keeps it unclear what makes them tick until the very last moment. It is one of the highlights in the collection.

Nightflyers (1980) is a horror story in space. It is also set in Martin's Thousand Worlds and was made into a craptastic movie in 1987. I've seen it so you don't have to. Don't. Read the story instead. There are two versions of this story. Martin has opted to put the longest of the two in this collection. He feels the shorter version is too constrained by its length. He may well be right there. Another author might have made this into a full novel. It would certainly have been possible.

Nightflyers is about a poorly funded expedition to find the mysterious Volcryn. Beings who have been spotted for thousands of years, traveling from the centre of the galaxy to the rim. The expedition's leader has trouble finding a ship that will stop in interstellar space and so he turns to the Nightflyer. The captain of the ship is decidedly peculiar. He will only show himself as a hologram. There is always something claustrophobic about a spaceship where all is not well and Martin uses that to the full extent in this story. The ship is the only thing that keeps them alive in the hostile environment of deep space. Where do you turn if it is also trying to kill you? It is a solid story. I have no idea how the makers of that movie managed to screw up so badly. Maybe someone should have another go at it.

The Monkey Treatment (1983) is another of the stories in this section I don't particularly like. It is a play on words mostly. The main character has a monkey on his back. Literally. The story about a man who likes to eat and is seriously overweight because of it. He feels bad about his weight and even blames his lack of success with women on his posture. Desperate to lose weight he opts for radical treatment. We see the entire story from the point of view of the main character. He clearly doesn't like being overweight and associates his size with being ugly, gross and repulsive. He does so in no uncertain terms. It is probably not a pleasant read for people who are not happy with their posture. There is nothing to balance the main character's opinion on these matters either, since he provides the only point of view in the story. I like the concept of the story but I don't particularly like the execution.

The final story in this section is The Pear-Shaped Man (1987), which is without a doubt the most creepy tale in the bunch. A young woman moves into a new apartment building. In the basement lives a peculiar man everybody knows as  the Pear-Shaped Man. He seems harmless but the main character slowly becomes obsessed with him and is convinced he means to do her harm. Martin manages to make the man creepy without him actually doing much of anything early on in the story. The unease the main character feels does grow into full blown horror later on though. I feel Martin slips a bit at the end of the story. The climax is very surreal and doesn't really seem to fit whit the rest of the story. Still a supremely creepy bit of writing though. Of his uncut horror stories, this one is probably the best.

A Taste of Tuf

Where 1971 was a big year in Martin's life, 1979 and 1985 prove to be equally important to his career. Martin produced a steady stream of short fiction throughout the 1970s. His first collection appears in 1976, followed by a second in 1977. that year will also see the release of his first novel Dying of the Light. He is selling reasonably well but still has to keep a day job to get by. He organizes chess tournaments to supplement his income and 1976 till 1978 he teaches English and Journalism at Clarke College in Dubugue, Iowa and becomes their writer in residence in 1978-1979. When his first wife graduates Martin decides to take the plunge. They decide to move to New Mexico where Martin will devote himself to writing full time. His marriage does not survive the relocation but Martin is more productive in these years than in any previous period in his career.

His second novel Windhaven, a fixup written in collaboration with Lisa Tuttle appears in 1981, followed by the historical horror novel Fevre Dream in 1982. For his fourth novel he gets his biggest advance yet and Martin uses it to finance a bigger house. While the critics love The Armageddon Rag (1983), the novel doesn't sell at all. It is a novel that is hard to place in a genre, and completely different from what Martin has written before. Personally I think it is very good but it must have been a pain to market. In 1985 it becomes clear that his agent is unable to get anyone to make a bid on Martin's fifth novel, which by that point is partially finished. Martin is in serious trouble now. He abandons what should have been his fifth novel and looks for other sources of income. Tuf Voyaging is one of the projects he takes on in this period. Part of the unfinished novel was later published in the collection Quartet: Tales From the Crossroads (2001).

In 1986 Baen publishes Tuf Voyaging. It is sometimes called a novel but in my mind it is a short story collection. Stories about Tuf, an eccentric trader and ecological engineer traveling Martin's Thousand Worlds universe, fixing all matter of ecological problems, appeared between 1976 and 1985. I reviewed the collection earlier this year so I'm not going to go into too much detail about it. Martin has selected two of the stories from that collection. Of the first one, A Beast for Norn (1976) is the oldest of the lot and was rewritten before the publication of Tuf Voyaging. In Dreamsongs Martin includes the original version. It is a bit shorter than the one in Tuf Voyaging, with a more abrupt ending. The version that ended up in the Tuf collection is definitely more polished and more in line with the other stories. It is interesting to see the changes Martin made to the story and how the character of Tuf developed but of course you do need access to both versions to appreciate that.

The devastation Tuf causes in this story also shows that Martin's expertise on the subject of ecology is limited. The casual way in which species get released into an environment they did not evolve in borders on the criminal but Tuf seems to think the ecosystem will find a new balance. Whether that new balance is capable of supporting human life is anyone's guess. The second story is Guardians (1981) which is chronologically set before A Beast for Norn. Interestingly enough, Tuf is a lot more concerned in this story about the effects of meddling in an ecosystem he doesn't fully understand. Fortunately he solves the puzzle before species go extinct.

End of part two. Come back on Sunday for the final part of this review.

Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective - George R.R. Martin (part 1)

Riding on the first wave of success for his massive series A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin and Subterranean  published this equally massive tome with an overview of his career up to that point in 2003. It has since been reprinted by Gollancz and Bantam under various tittles, sometimes in one volume, sometimes in two or three. I own the Gollancz edition from 2007. One of the one volume ones. It weighs in at 1185 pages and contains an introduction by Gardner Dozois, nine essays, thirty-four pieces of short fiction and a bibliography. It is, in other words, quite an exhaustive read. I've been going over it in the past few months for a Dutch language project over at Hebban. That project involves ten articles and will probably total something close to twenty-thousand words. It's a bit much to do the whole thing over again in English (it would have to be substantially rewritten for a different audience) so I figured I'd try for a more conventional review for Random Comments. With so much material to cover it turned out to be a bit on the long side so I am splitting it in three parts. The second part is scheduled for Wednesday, and the final installment will be posted next Sunday.

Dreamsongs is divided into nine sections. They are roughly chronological and sometimes thematically ordered and each cover a stage in the career of Martin. He starts in his youth and goes all the way on to The Hedge Knight (1998), which is the newest piece covered in the collection. Each of the sections is preceded by an essay by Martin in which he discusses his inspirations. They also contain quite a bit of biographical detail. Martin has selected stories that he thinks represents a certain part of his work best, and although there are a few award winning stories in this collection, it is certainly no best of George R.R. Martin. At least, that is not what he aims for.

A Four-Color Fanboy
 
This section of the collection deals with Martin's youth and very early writings. Martin calls them his apprentice works. He discusses what first set him on the path to becoming a writer and strangely enough, it is not science fiction. In his early years Martin read a lot of comics. He made up his own stories too and even sold them to his classmates. Later he did of course move on to science fiction and fantasy, but the foundation is still comics. Martin was a real fanboy and wrote for several of the amateur fan magazines of the 1960s. It explains something about Wild Cards I guess. Martin includes three pieces of his early writing in the collection. None of them sold, but The Fortress did get reworked in a story Marin would write in the 1980s.

Only Kids are Afraid of the Dark (1967) is essentially a comic in written form. The prose is absolutely terrible and the story a cliché superhero plot. Martin's imagination does shine through but at this point he clearly has a lot to learn about writing. Martin takes creative writing classes in college and the other two stories in this section are a result of that. The first is The Fortress (1968), which he wrote for a class in Scandinavian history. It describes the events at the siege of the fortress Sveaborg in 1808. The reasons for its surrender still puzzles historians. It is straight historical fiction. Martin does not include any speculative elements and follows history as it is known. I'm still not impressed by the prose in this story, but it has improved a lot compared to his written comics so I guess the classes are paying off.

The third story is not a particularly fine piece either. And Death His Legacy (1968) is a rather blunt political statement. Given the time Martin went to college (late sixties, early seventies) I guess the content is not even that radical, but reading it today, it mostly strikes me as immature. These stories are Martin spreading his wings, writing to learn for the more professional pieces that will follow. He is taking a chance by publishing them in this volume. They are not that interesting to read as stories, but do give a clear insight into Martin's development as a writer. As such I can appreciate them, but I am not surprised that he didn't sell any of them.

The Filthy Pro

The second section of Dreamsongs deals with Martin's early sales. He sold his first story, The Hero, to Galaxy in 1971, while still in college. After that first sale, Martin starts to publish regularly in the major magazines. The other stories in this section are from the summer that he graduated. Martin holds a Master's degree in journalism but couldn't find a job in that profession. The summer of 1971 was one of the few moments in the 1970s when he actually had plenty of time to write. It resulted in a number of stories that would help Martin establish a career in science fiction.

The Hero is the first story set in Martin's future history that doesn't have an official name. Most people refer to it as the Thousand Worlds however. The Hero is another, albeit slightly less blunt political statement. It deals with a soldier from a high gravity planet. He possesses augmentation of his already impressive physical strength, making him a formidable warrior. He feels he's getting old though, and wants to retire  before the enemy gets him. His superiors are not sure that is a good idea. Martin, who faced the draft and a likely tour in Vietnam at the time, filed for conscientious-objector status and sent this story along with his application. Given the distrust it displays of those in command of the army, I am not at all surprised it was granted. Martin spent his alternative service with VISTA between 1972 and 1974.

The Exit to San Breta (1972) is a futuristic ghost story. Martin himself insists it is fantasy and not science fiction. The story is a bit dated by now. Martin predicts the flying car sometime in the 1990s, which makes regular cars obsolete in the twenty-first century. The highways are abandoned and only traveled by those with an interest in the classics. The main character is driving his classic Edsel down a lonely stretch of highway when he is involved in a car crash. There is more to the accident than meets the eye. The story may be very dated, the one thing Martin got right in it is the status of the Edsel as a classic. It was a dismal commercial failure when it was put on the market by Ford but now an Edsel in good condition is quite valuable.

The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972) is where Martin really hits his stride. It is the first story in what was meant to be a series. Martin has written a lot of first stories but not many seconds and even fewer thirds. It is written in the form of diary entries and deals with, as the title suggests, loneliness. A theme that Martin would revisit frequently throughout the 1970s. Although Martin puts his main character in the most lonely place imaginable, a space station on the edge of the solar system, the loneliness that the main character is concerned with is the kind of someone who is awkward in the company of others. It's a very tragic story and in my opinion the best in this section.

The readers at the time probably didn't agree with me though because Martin got his first Hugo and Nebula nomination for another Thousand Worlds story. With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973) is a mood piece really. Not much to the plot but the central question. Do we really need to know it all or are some things better left a mystery? Martin clearly believes we need a bit of mystery in our lives. Martin didn't win, the Hugo went to Ursula K. Le Guin that year and the Nebula to James Tiptree, Jr. He  had settled into his writing career though, and more awards nominations would follow.

The Light of Distant Stars

The next three sections all cover work from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s. Martin attempts to present them as science fiction, fantasy and horror respectively although he admits he often blends genres. The Light of Distant Stars is the section dealing with science fiction and contains six stories, all set in his Thousand Worlds setting. It opens strongly, with one of Martin's most famous stories. A Song of Lya (1974) would get him a Hugo, Locus and Nebula Award nomination. He won the Hugo but lost the other two to Robert Silverberg. It is a heartbreaking tale and one of many in Dreamsongs that deals with broken hearts and unanswered love. These stories are in part a reflection of Martin's own love life at the time. He ceases to write them in the early 1980s, when Parris McBride moves in with him. He would marry her in 2011. Martin builds a good science fiction story out of it, but essentially it is about lovers drifting apart. I can definitely see why it is one of the most popular stories Martin ever produced.

In This Tower of Ashes (1975) we meet another character with a broken heart. He has distanced himself from everybody and broods out in the wilderness. It is not nearly as strong as A Song for Lya. The main character is being childish and petty. He keeps seeing himself as a victim and that makes him uninteresting for the readers. Not the strongest story in this section.

And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975) is much better. It was inspired by a bit of poetry from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling in which a wolf teaches its pups the law of the jungle. Martin shows in this story what happens if you do kill man and as you can probably imagine, it isn't pretty. Interestingly enough, pacifism plays an important role in the plot. Given Martin's political leanings and his stance on the Vietnam War, perhaps it isn't surprising but I don't know many writers who would deal with the type of conflict described in the story in such a way. Another interesting element is religious madness as a theme. Something that will show up in Martin's later work as well. Maybe not quite as much personal drama as in some of Martin's other stories but in And Seven Times Never Kill Man we do get to see Martin at his best.

Martin got into editing in the 1970s as well. One of his projects was a series based on Campbell Award nominated writers called New Voices in Science Fiction. He would edit six of them although the final one never got published. The publisher Bluejay went bankrupt before it could be published. For the first edition he got to buy one of his own stories (Martin was nominated for the Campbell Award for best new writer in 1973) and that story is The Stone City (1977). The main character is a galactic traveler who gets stuck on the planet Greyrest. Apart from huge fields of ruins from an extinct civilization, there doesn't appear to be much of anything on the planet. It's a haunting tale where the main character eventually looses himself chasing his dream to see the galaxy. The main character is a bit like Martin himself in this period. Hopping from world to world, sampling each but never committing to one. It would be a while yet before Martin could make himself abandon that approach.

In Bitterblooms (1977) we see another character trapped in a fantasy. This story contains a bit of Arthurian mythology and plenty of references to the planet Avalon, a name that shows up in many Thousand Wolds stories. It is tempting to live in a fantasy, but real life and responsibilities are calling. It is indeed a bitter story about choices and their consequences. The experience changes the main character in ways that make it hard for her to really fit in her old life. It's another very good story in what is a very strong section of Dreamsongs.

The final story in this section, The Way of Cross and Dragon, takes us to a planet where Judas Iskariot has been pronounced a saint. One of the distant successors of the Catholic Church is not amused and sends in an inquisitor. Another story dealing with religion. It is very cynical really. The story is not so much about faith as about doubt, and of that there is plenty. The characters have a hard time admitting it though. It probably won't be a favourite with deeply religious people but I thought it another strong piece.

End of part one, come back on Wednesday for more.