New York 2140 - Kim Stanley Robinson

In his previous novel Aurora (2015) Robinson tackled a well known science fiction trope, that of a sub-lightspeed generational space ship, designed to hold enough people and supplies to survive a voyage of centuries and establish a colony on a new planet. His conclusion is sobering. Taking a human out of the environment they evolved in, Robinson claims, will almost certainly lead to extinction. Our bodies are so attuned to our environment and the organisms we share it with that survival, even elsewhere in the solar system, will be an almost insurmountable challenge. His message to humanity is clear. There is no Earth 2, try not to break the one we do have. Given this message, it is not surprising Robinson returns to Earth for his next novel. New York 2140 is set, as the title suggests, in the Big Apple a dozen decades from now. In that time a lot has changed, but in some respects, the city remains much the same.

In two separate cataclysmic events the sea level rose fifty feet. Coastlines around the world were flooded and many people have been displaced. New York is partially under water but this is not enough for people to abandon the city. The city has adapted to life in a partially submerged city. Many of the skyscrapers are still inhabited and innovative ways to connect them have been developed. One such building with its feet in the water is the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. Once the tallest building in the city, it is now into its third century and run as a cooperation of the inhabitants. The disappearance of two men living in the building is the first of a series of events that will challenge the inhabitants of the building and the city greatly.

It is clear from the start the same ingenuity and imagination that brought the red planet to life in stunning detail in the Mars trilogy is at work here. Robinson has done his homework on the city and it shows in many details. From the geography of the region to the layout of the city, all of it is worked into this semi-submerged future New York. Quite a bit of attention went into what the new conditions would do to infrastructure as well. The tidal zone in particular is hard on steel and concrete. Robinson's research into the city didn't stop there. He pays attention to the legal status of the coastline as well, which has very interesting implications for the story, and he takes an interest in the history of the city. Many obscure, sometimes funny, little details about the city precede each shift in point of view. I'm not sure what a native would make of it, but for an outsider the setting works very well.

Given the description on the inside flat and the striking cover, you would be forgiven for thinking this book is about climate change. You would also be wrong. Climate change is a given in the novel. The city has for the most part adapted. The mechanism Robinson uses to explain this rapid sea level rise is considered not terribly likely, but it does fit the requirements for the story. What he really wants to discuss in this novel is global finance. New York is the self-proclaimed capital of capital, and even fifty feet of water is not enough to wash that away. The characters are very much aware of it and discuss the state of global finance, neoliberal economic theory and the economy of the US in detail. Robinson has never shied away from using the social sciences in his books, but to my knowledge this is the first time he goes into economics this extensively.

The way he goes about it is very interesting. While the characters debate the economy as a whole, how global finance works and how wealth is distributed, the story itself focusses of the effects on a much smaller scale. Capital has fled the city when it flooded. Much of the real estate was wrecked and deemed a total loss. Years of human ingenuity and advances in material science has shown investors how there might still be money to be made. Soon, the cooperation finds itself under pressure to sell to an unknown bidder. When money is not enough, other means are employed. Through the characters we get the rationale of why capital behaves this way, while showing us the effect in intimate detail.

Robinson uses quite a large cast to tell his story, no fewer than eight different points of view. One of them is simply named 'a citizen'. Robinson uses this citizen to speak to the reader directly. His writing is often criticised for containing large sections of scientific theory, usually related as an interior monologue (or as some would have it, a plain infodump). In this novel he concentrates that for a large part in the citizen point of view. The citizen is an observer, as far as we can tell he or she does not play a role in the story. You might even go so far as to say Robinson inserted himself in the novel. The citizen informs us about the state of the city, the economy, the geology and natural history of the region and of course the mechanisms of sea level rise. Saves the characters quite a bit of thinking. I very much doubt it is going to convince the people who don't like Robinson's style, but it is certainly an interesting experiment.

The question of how we should shape our world and society often comes up in Robinson's work. It goes all the way back to the Orange County triptych. In these novels there is almost always a sense of optimism. There are ideas to make the world better, technology is there or can be developed, there are people willing to throw themselves into it, and there is enough common sense not to turn away from a problem. If, for instance, climate change cannot be prevented, we can at least mitigate it and adapt to the new circumstances. In this novel, the sense that humanity is willingly doing something dreadfully stupid prevails. There is a sense of disbelief and irritation at the continuous cycle of bubbles and busts that does so much damage to society.

Over the course of the book the citizen gets angrier and angrier. His main argument is that the global economic system heavily favours those possessing extreme wealth while making life unnecessarily  hard on everybody else. The book illustrates this by a look into the world of finance. He details how capital tends to accumulate with those that already have a lot and how, at some point, money is not invested back into the real economy but rather funnelled into what its detractors call the casino economy. Speculating on indexes, derivatives and the like. In this way, capital becomes detached from the physical reality of the world, yet the bubbles it creates (and busts) still have a significant impact on society. The citizen can't help but wonder why the vast majority of people put up with this blatant bit of tyranny. With another bubble popped, even for the people in the capital of capital, enough is enough. The minute chance of becoming filthy rich is not worth the misery it imposes on others. Revolution is brewing.

What is most striking about the economics in the novel, is the way one of the characters thinks about investment and how it is a sin to sink money into a specific project rather than 'keeping it liquid' and moving it around to where the most profit is to be made. As many other reviewers point out there is a parallel between the way water behaves in the novel and how capital flows. Throughout the novel various economists appear to be looking over the shoulder of the characters. Not surprisingly, Keynes is the most prominent among them. The novel frequently refers back to the great depression. Robinson criticises Ben Bernanke, and implicitly the European Central Bank for the quantitative easing and bailing out of banks going down in a self-inflicted bust. The capital pumped into the system does not trickle down, so he argues, but only serves to fuel the next bubble. It is, he feels, not worth the austerity policies necessary to service the public debt. To break the cycle of bubble and bust, one of the characters suggest Piketty-ing the tax system, a form of progressive tax making it virtually impossible to live on capital gains alone. Given the way global politics are developing, it may well be another century before that happens.

Robinson may have shifted his attention a bit compared to other books, New York 2140 is nevertheless a fine example of his writing. Socially engaged, well researched and infused with a great sense of location. Whatever you may think of his view on the world, he manages to get it across in a fascinating way. It is another way of looking at a set of challenges humanity faces. Although he revisits themes he has covered before, you can't say Robinson is repeating himself. It is always building on what has gone before, adding a new angle or refinement to his world view. I greatly enjoyed reading it. In a way it is as controversial as Aurora, knocking around the idea of the American Dream a bit. As such, it will divide readers. When reading Kim Stanley Robinson, this is as it should be.

Book Details
Title: New York 2140
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 613
Year: 2017
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-356-50875-7
First published: 2017

The Spider's War - Daniel Abraham

The Spider's War is the fifth and final installment of Daniel Abraham's Dagger and Coin series. It is Abraham's take on traditional epic fantasy. It has all the ingredients: dynastic struggles, an ancient wrong to be set right, unlikely heroes and heroines, war on a large scale and the fate of the world itself hanging in the balance. He didn't aim to be startlingly original with this series - although he can't help but subvert a few fantasy tropes here and there - but rather do epic fantasy exceptionally well. In the previous volumes I always had the feeling it was indeed well done but not exceptional. Time to find out how he handles the climax of the series.

The armies of the Antean Lord Regent Geder Palliako have overextended themselves. Exhausted, poorly supplied and only kept from mutiny by the power of the Spider Goddess, they face almost certain annihilation when the fighting resumes in spring. The desperate state the empire is in hasn't penetrated the court in Camnipol yet, but it  is only a question of time. In the city of Carse in the mean time, Marcus Wester, Cithrin bel Sarcour and Clara Kaliam have gathered to find a way to bring the war to an end. Preferably without razing Antea to the ground. It is a formidable challenge that requires innovative financing, military excellence and intimate knowledge of Antean politics. And a dragon of course. Can't save the day without one.

Once again it is obvious that Abraham knows exactly where he is taking the story. Where series like these sometimes get away from the author and move in unexpected directions, Abraham keeps it nicely on track. Apart from a number of brief interludes, he resists the temptation of adding more point of view characters, drawing more parties into the conflict or exploring other parts of his world. It is focussed on the four point of view characters who have been with us from the beginning. As epic fantasies go, it is tightly plotted. Abraham leaves himself the option of more stories in this setting but the main conflict is resolved. Given how busy The Expanse is keeping him, the television series based on these novels is going into the second season, I very much doubt we'll see more on this world any time soon.

The one thing that Abraham does that seems to go directly against the current in epic fantasy at the moment is the relative lack of violence, blood and gore. There is fighting for sure, people die in horrible ways. They starve, freeze to death, get stabbed, are thrown off cliffs and fried by dragon fire but none of it is described in unnecessary detail. Sexual violence is almost completely absent. One or two references that it might have occurred during the war is all this book contains. It feels like a deliberate choice by Abraham, a comment on the direction Fantasy has taken in the last decade or so. One well worth thinking about.

Economics is again the most innovative part of the novel. Abraham describes the transition from using gold as currency to paper money only partially backed by gold in the national treasury. Nobody in the novel fully understands the consequences and risks of this move but in the short run (even fantasy bankers seem to be short-sighted) it works surprisingly well. Cithrin also seems to think that monetary compensation can slake the thirst for blood of Antea's enemies. Somehow I don't think that is going to work out very well. It strikes me as a bit of a fantasy version of the treaty of Versaille, but the story doesn't take us that far. None of the characters feel their plans can prevent all future military conflict though. They are wise enough to realize that.

Despite Cithrin's innovations, in previous books I felt Geder was the more interesting character. The dark streak in his personality, the doubt and rejection that are always gnawing at him, is seemingly at odds with his desire to do what he believes is right. In all the time he is regent it never occurred to him to get rid of the heir to the throne for instance, but he is ruthless with his enemies. There is a contradiction in his actions that keeps building and eventually has to lead to a crisis. In this novel his behaviour reaches new extremes. He strikes me as a full blown manic depressive in The Spider's War. The spiders can only do so much to keep him going it seems.

The other character that is clearly headed for a crisis is Clara. After all she has been through there is simply no going back to her old, comfortable life among the Antean nobles. Too much has changed. Of course facing up to the fact that her old life is a closed book takes courage. This is something Clara doesn't lack but for the final step she needs a push.  Geder and Clara are the most dynamic characters in the book. By contrast, Cithrin and Marcus more or less keep doing what they've been doing for most of the series. She keeps banking, he keeps campaigning even past the climax of the book. It is as if they don't quite know what to do with themselves after the end of the conflict.

Their response to the events in this final volume of the series is not unlike my own. Abraham wraps up his story neatly, if a little predictably here and there. It is well executed for sure but it does leave me with the feeling that it didn't quite achieve what it set out to do. Abraham tried to do something different with his Long Price novels and, commercially at least, they were not as successful as his publisher hoped they'd be. He bounced back with this series, among other projects, and delivered a well written, entertaining, traditional epic fantasy. It does not, however, have that one ingredient that lifts it above the mass of epic fantasy published today.

The drama of Khaiem, their unique culture and language supported by poses, added something to the story that the Dagger and Coin books lack. They were more risky in the sense that these books contained elements that made as many readers bounce right off these books but for readers looking for something a little different, they worked very well indeed. Taking this risk made them stand out for me in a way that the Dagger and Coin series does not. While I enjoyed reading these books, I wouldn't mind seeing Abraham try something a little less traditional for his next project.

Book Details
Title: The Spider's War
Author: Daniel Abraham
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 489
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-316-20405-7
First published: 2016

2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke

This novel is probably one of the best known and most read science fiction novels of all time. Its connection with the Stanley Kubrick movie of the same name helped lift it to a popularity that novel would not have reached otherwise. I'm not entirely sure the same is true for the movie  but it has to be said that they probably work better combined than each of them do individually. The novel and movie complement each other in a unique way. In part, this probably has to do with the way they were created simultaneously, with the movie eventually being released a few months before the novel. There is a fascinating contrast between Clarke's clear, direct prose and Kubrick's poetic and ultimately trippy cinematography. Personally I think it is virtually impossible to understand the movie without having read the novel.

The novel is written in six parts detailing the intervention of an alien species in the evolution of humanity. The story begins three million years ago, when a strange monolith is discovered by a group of starving early Homindae. Given the knowledge of human evolution at the time, Clarke probably had Homo Habilis in mind. The aliens set the human species on the path of developing tools, enabling them to hunt and add meat to their to that point meagre diet and defend themselves from predators. It sets the species on the path towards technology. The aliens do not stick around to see the result of their experiment. Instead, they set an alarm, one that humanity cannot fail to set off if they reach a sufficiently high level of technology. In the year 2001, it is discovered on the far side of the moon. We are no longer alone in the universe.

2001: A Space Odyssey was published in 1968 and like pretty much any science fiction novel of that decade, it is badly dated. This is most apparent in the Primeval Night section, set three million years ago. This part of the story borrows the concept from his short story Encounter in the Dawn which was published in 1953. Our knowledge of human evolution has increased tremendously in the last half century, creating a much more detailed picture of the human family tree, as well as their environment, diet and other aspects of their ecology. A modern anthropologist would shred the opening of the novel to pieces. The implication that cognition is so rare that Earth needed a nudge to develop it is interesting though. Makes you wonder where, in Clarke's story, we would have ended up without it.

Soon Clarke moves into more familiar territory: the future seen from 1968. Part of the story is inspired by another one of Clarke's short pieces, The Sentinel written in 1948. He misses his guess on a number of social and political developments in these sections too. Space travel is much more advanced in the novel and human visits to the gas giants are possible in this story. As always there is a meticulous eye for the details of space travel. The difference between weight and mass, the consequences of the absence of gravity, inertia and how all those things impact and complicate getting around in space. This is what Clarke is good at and it is on prominent display in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He even goes so far as to describe how using a toilet in space might be accomplished. It sounds like a bit of an overcomplicated solution to me.

The real star of the show is HAL9000 though, and Kubrick makes excellent use of that in the movie. In a way, Clarke reaches back here to Asimov's stories on artificial intelligence. In his Robot stories he describes several scenarios in which the programming instructions of the Robot appears to conflict and the sometimes unexpected results this can have. HAL9000 is presented a similar problem and he turns the trip into a nightmare for the crew. The movie does a better job of turning HAL into a creepy machine but the book is not far behind. The isolation of the crew and he fact that HAL is the essential in running many parts of the ship create an atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia in this part of the novel. It is Clarke, the eternal optimist when it comes to human ingenuity, warning against the use of technology we do not fully understand.

It's not the only thing Clarke is uncharacteristically pessimistic about. He gets the population of Earth about right but thought we would have trouble feeding that many. In essence, the final part of the story tells us that we once again could use alien intervention. That picture is buried in an almost surreal bit of writing however. Clarke's aliens are alien for sure. It has to be said that Clarke does a few things that are atypical in this book. Perhaps that is the influence Kubrick had on the novel. It does contain many of the flaws found in much of his work though. Characters are completely two-dimensional and there isn't a woman in sight. When the new wave was washing over science fiction, Clarke was for the most part still stuck in big idea stories. Something he would not be able to move beyond in the rest of his career either.

I very much doubt 2001: A Space Odyssey would have been the pinnacle of popularity in Clarke's career without the movie. It is probably telling that while the movie is considered one of the best science fiction movies ever - it even won an Oscar for the best visual effects -  the novel generally does not inspire such praise. It was largely ignored during awards season, a sharp contract to Rendezvous with Rama (1973) which would sweep the awards a few years later. It is an influential work for sure, but the shadow of the movie looms over it. Perhaps the two can't really be fully enjoyed separately. For me at least, the book and the movie work a lot better in tandem. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of those science fiction novels you have to have read, but in all honesty, it is not the best Clarke has produced.

Book Details
Title: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 266
Year: 2007
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-85723-664-4
First published: 1968

Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson

After his venture into prehistory in Shaman, Kim Stanley Robinson turns around and takes us to the twenty-eighth century. His output has been very varied over the past two decades and in this novel he again explores territory he hasn't covered before. Generational starships have come up once or twice. There is one in Icehenge, and another in Blue Mars, but they are always at the periphery of the story. In this novel, the concept takes centre stage. It makes Aurora an unusual book in some ways and a return to familiar themes in others. It is full of ideas on space exploration and terraforming, but there is also a notable shift in his thinking on these subjects. One that will surprise more than a few of his readers. Nevertheless,  I think Robinson wrote one of the best science fiction novels in 2015 with Aurora. I fully expect him to show up on a couple of awards shortlists next year.

The generational starship Aurora is set to arrive at the Tau Ceti systems, one of our closest neighbours, 170 years after its launch. They have been sent to found a colony and spread the human race across the galaxy. The ship is huge, carrying miniatures of the most important of Earth's ecosystems. The variety of life on board is impressive but the ship can carry only so much. After a more than a century and a half, a strain on the ship's ecosystem is starting to be felt. The restrictions imposed on the population, trying to maintain the precarious ecological balance is starting to wear on the population. As they approach their new home, a kind of cabin fever spreads through the ship. Some people can't wait to be out and about. Others are not so sure.

Kim Stanley Robinson has a can do approach to science fiction. In a field that is inundated with natural disasters, alien invasions, ecological catastrophe and all manner of post-apocalyptic tales, his stories tend to be more upbeat. We can act meaningfully to mitigate the effects of climate change, we can reform the capitalist economic system to create a more even distribution of wealth and a more sustainable economy, we can go out and colonize other planets, we can build spacecraft that can reach the stars. The challenges are formidable but solutions can be found. This novel, in a way, is not quite as optimistic. Yes, we can reach the stars, but what happens when we get there, that is another story.

Robinson has some pretty scary things to say about ecosystems in this novel. He reaches back to island biogeography, a branch of biology founded by Wilson and MacArthur that is very influential among conservationists. What Robinson is describing is a system spiralling into collapse. The ship simply isn't large enough to sustain the variety of life on board it and there is a constant pressure to revert to less complex, but in the long run more stable, systems. The people on board, ironically the factor that contributes most to this pressure, try to prevent that from happening but the realization that no ecosystem is fully closed is starting to sink in. Now take a step back and think about what this means for the situation on Earth, where natural ecosystems are being forced into ever smaller areas to clear land for human uses.

There seems to be a limit to how long a spaceship can sustain a human population and that leads to the next problem the colonists face. They are sent to Tau Ceti because it is conveniently close, not necessarily because it has the most hospitable planets. When the moon they had pinned their hopes on turns out to be a killer, the colonists face a dreadful decision. Try another, less hospitable location, or refuel, turn around and head back to the solar system. Neither of which has a good chance of success. Colonizing the stars is harder than science fiction makes it out to be.

In essence, Robinson is saying the stars are too far away, and life is too well adapted to the solar system to make relocation a viable option. It is an idea that is quite popular in a sense. Where the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the early 20th century supposed that humanity would one day leave its cradle, in recent years it becomes apparent that it may not be that easy to permanently live elsewhere. Even the terraforming process on Mars, mentioned briefly in this novel, has run into problems Robinson did not yet know about when writing his Mars trilogy. When reading it I got the sense that Robinson is telling us we need to take better care of spaceship Earth, because abandoning it, does not appear to be an option.

Robinson chooses an unusual point of view for large stretches of the novel. The ship's main computer is given the task to create a narrative of the expedition by the main engineer of the ship. While a quantum computer can do a great many things (simultaneously), it is not very well equipped for this task. Early on in the novel, the computer digresses, expresses problems in trying to select what to include and what to leave out and is given to long rambles about the details of running the ship and its observations about the humans he is transporting. Gradually it evolves into a somewhat understated drama with the computer as omniscient narrator (which, on the ship at least, is more or less correct). It is so well done that some readers may wonder if the final part of the novel, which is not narrated by the computer, is necessary. That's not really an issue I can discuss here without giving away the end of the novel so you'll have to find that out for yourself.

Some readers will inevitably have issues with Robinson's approach. The ship's issues with the command to tell the story makes for a fairly slow start of the novel. At one point the engineer interferes and tells the ship what it is doing wrong (too much detail, too much backstory). Robinson will have lost more than a few readers at that point. I guess it also depends on the willingness of the reader to accept the computer as a character as well as the narrator. In terms of character development, the computer shows the most growth by far.

This review can't even begin to do justice to all the ideas Robinson puts into this novel. Besides ideas on ecology and human evolution, he also includes thoughts on Alan Turing and artificial intelligence, the ethics of generational space ships and how subsequent generations would see the choice their ancestors made for them, philosophies on consciousness and self-awareness show up in the text, as well as thoughts on language and communication. If science fiction is the literature of ideas for you, I very much doubt you could do much better than this novel.

Aurora is a novel that provides an awful lot of food for thought. It has taken me a few days before I could make myself pick up a new book just to digest it all. Robinson has produced come wonderful books in the past and Aurora definitely ranks with the best of them. The narrative structure is perhaps not everybody's cup of tea. Robinson's choice of narrator influences the characterization and pacing of the novel to a large extent. Personally, I am more than willing to put up with a slow start to see where Robinson takes the story, but it is a novel that requires a bit of patience. I feel it pays off though. It is without a doubt one of the notable releases in science fiction of 2015.

Book Details
Title: Aurora
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 466
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-316-09810-6
First published: 2015

Caliban's War - James S.A. Corey

In the summer of 2011, I read Leviathan Wakes the first book in this series. James S.A. Corey is a pseudonym of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, both form associates of George R.R. Martin. I have read quite a bit by Abraham and some of his books are very good indeed. Leviathan Wakes was quite a fun book to read which I thought did more than just be a the space opera it was supposed to be according to the publisher. The second volume appeared in 2012 and I decided to order it. It then lingered on the to read stack for almost three years. What pulled me back to it was the fact that the shooting for a television series based on this series (the fifth book of which, Nemesis Games, will appear in June) is under way. Having read Caliban's War I must admit it might make of a decent television series. That does not necessarily make it a good book though. I feel it is a step back from the first book in the series.

James Holden is now in the employ of the outer planets. In his liberated Martian spaceship he patrols the outer reaches of the solar system with his crew. It is a decent living but tensions are rising within the crew and the relationship beween Holden and his girlfriend Naomi is strained. Their situation changes radically when on Ganymede, the breadbasket of the outer solar system and a moon coveted by Earth, Mars and the outer planets, a firefight appears to break out between Martian and UN forces. The truth is more complicated than that though. The alien intelligence that almost killed Holden on Eros station. Once again he is sucked into events that could plummet the solar system into war, or worse, wipe out the human race completely.

Leviathan Wakes was a space opera with noir elements mixed in. In this book a mystery is included too, the disappearance of a young girl is a key part of the plot, but the space opera clearly has the upper hand. Corey shifts from two main points of view to four. Besides Holden, we get to see the story from the point of view of the Martian marine Bobbie, the only survivor of the incident on Ganymede, the scientist Prax from that same moon and father of the missing gril, and  UN official Avasarala who tries to prevent a war from engulfing the system despite her superior's stupid actions. These two men and two women shape the events described in the book. Unlike in Leviathan Wakes, the UN official in particular, can pull strings all over the system, making it much more a political story.

The novel is dedicated to Arthur C. Clarke and Alfred Bester, two greats of science fiction. I haven't read Bester but I can see traces of Clarke in this novel. I suspect that Heinlein was probably a greater influence on the novel though. There are quite a few political statements in the text. Bobbie in particular seems to hold strong views on Earth's social security system. The novel does take us all over the solar system however, and that is something Clarke would have appreciated. It is a story on a grand scale, with characters who, despite making it their home, are still in awe of the vastness of space. Corey might not be able to pull it off for the more experienced science fiction reader but the characters themselves, clearly exhibit a sense of wonder when they have a moment to reflect on their situation.

As I said in the introduction, this book lends itself well to television. It has four clearly defined main characters with clear wants you can easily sympathize with. Holden wants his girlfriend back, Bobbie wants to kill the bastard who wiped out her squad, Prax wants to find his daughter, and Avasarala wants to stay in the game. That is what they work for, it is what drives them and there is very little left over for any other concerns. It makes all of them fairly shallow characters. Holden is the only one who escapes this to an extend because he has a book worth of backstory. I found Avasarala's chapters the worst in this respect as she has the annoying tendency to see every little action in the perspective of her political games and is willing to use anyone to get what she wants. She is refreshingly outspoken about it though, I have to give her that. Still, she struck me as a character who plays the political game for its own sake, regardless of who many people get ground up in her machinations. Corey tries to put things in perspective by anchoring her to her family. Her husband in particular is important to her to keep things in perspective. I can't say I found him very convincing in that role.

Bobbie on sees things more of less from the other end. As a marine too much thinking is not encouraged and she reflects that almost to the point of stereotype. Bobbie is the common sense in this book. Where Avasarala's thinking is convoluted, Bobbie's way of thinking is simplicity itself. Which doesn't mean she doesn't show surprising insights at times. What I didn't think was convincing about her story is that she very easily lets go of her loyalties to Mars to serve the other side in the conflict. She does feel bad about it to an extent but she caries on anyway without, especially early on, a clear idea on how it would help her achieve her revenge or help improve the situation in general. On the one hand she is portrayed as a smart woman, on the other, she can't seem to think further ahead than the next five minutes. The early stages in the novel pay attention to post traumatic stress, something more novels dealing with war situation should take into account. That is definitely one of the stronger elements of her story line.

Prax is the third character with only one thing on his mind. His search for his daughter consumes him to the point that it could easily have cost him his life. He sees his world falling apart and is one of the few people on the station with the knowledge to slow the process enough for help to arrive. He doesn't do it though. His daughter is much more important to him. You can see the insights into what is going on on Ganymede bounce of him. They make no impact whatsoever. It is not until the very end of the book that he reconsiders his verdict on Ganymede as a lost cause. Prax is potentially a very interesting character but like the others, his is completely consumed by the immediate desire to find his little girl. It is a touching story but not one that allows Prax to develop any real depth.

Corey keeps the pace up in this novel. The chapters are not too long, to very the point and alternate between the four characters. The often end on cliffhangers, making the reader want to read just one more chapter. In that sense it is almost a compulsive read. The ending of the novel also contains a clear hook for the third book in the series. Structurally, you can almost see the episodes of a television series in it. It is a plot that is constructed in advance and then filled in as each of the authors making up Corey delivers their chapters.

The sense that is constructed rather than written is much more present in this second book and that is probably the main reason why I think it is a step back from the first novel Abraham and Franck seem to have settled in a routine and delivered a routine book. Caliban's War is not a bad read mind you, it did keep me entertained and I never considered putting it down, but this time it really is what it says on the package, a soap opera in space. I think these gentlemen are more talented than that. Still, it might make for a good television series. I think I am going to give that a go when the first episodes are aired. I'm not sure about reading Abaddon's Gate, the third book in the series though. I'll have to think about that.

Book Details
Title: Caliban's War
Author: James S.A. Corey
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 595
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-84149-990-1
First published: 2012

The Widow's House - Daniel Abraham

The Widow's House is the fourth volume of the Dagger and Coin series by Daniel Abraham. They've been appearing like clockwork every year in spring. Recently the cover art for the fifth and final volume was released. The Spider's War is set for release in the spring or summer of 2015. These books tend to linger on my to read stack for a while. On the one hand I like Abraham's writing, but on the other, these novels are not the most challenging or innovative reads around. They deliver what they set out to do. The Dagger and Coin is solid, epic fantasy, nothing more and nothing less. If you are in the mood for that, you could do worse than these novels.

War has enveloped the world. Geder's armies, assisted by the spider priests are achieving one victory after another. The rapid pace of expansion is causing problems though. His armies are exhausted, food is scarce because most of the farmers have been called up to fight and on top of that, there are rumors that a dragon has once again been spotted in the world. Still Geder wants to press on. The rejection by Cithrin stings and when he realizes how she used him, there is no holding him back. The army marches on Porte Oliva to settle the account with Cithrin.

In The Tyrant's Law, Marcus and Master Kit figured out that the Spider Goddess does not exist but that the ancient dragon magic creates the illusion of communicating with the Goddess. Its victims are completely convinced they are right and will prevail. Throughout the book we see signs how this conviction is beginning to work against the priests and how it will lead the world into a spiral of continuous violence. The shape of the conflict to come is beginning to get clear in this novel. It also means Marcus' job is done for the moment and he takes a bit of a back seat in the novel. The unresolved tension between him and Cithrin remains unresolved. Making peace with his past is also out of reach for the moment.

While Abraham is clearly working towards the climax of the story, in The Widow's House he is mostly setting the stage. There is a major battle in the book but neither of the parties get out of it what they were aiming for. In fact, Abraham makes it clear that the solution for ending this conflict is an economic one rather than military. It is Cithrin's mind for economics that comes up with a way to fuse the economies of the various nations in such a way that war becomes too expensive to wage. Her method is not the same but the idea that war can be prevented in such a manner is one of the principles on which the EU and its forerunners operate. The way in which economics is woven into the story is remains one of the most interesting aspects of the story. Interestingly enough, Cithrin also sets up the mechanisms for a spectacular economic crash here. I don't think the story will take us that far but it would certainly have been interesting to see how she'd respond to that.

Clara in the meantime is still seeing the world though more feudal eyes. Even more aware of the various classes of society, Clara herself moves though a kind of vacuum. She is an embarrassment to the court, yet the mother of one of the nation's highest military leaders. It changes her perspective in many ways. She does remain convinced that Geder will lead the nations into ruin however, and continues her campaign to see him removed from the throne. I liked her attitude in this book. She is of the opinion that the worst has already happened to her and is quite willing to risk her life to see peace return to the world. Abraham does make sure to keep a bit of an aristocratic outlook in this character, she may have fallen from grace but her upbringing will not let her be anything but a lady most of the time.

Geder himself seems at a bit of a standstill in this book. He is still the slightly naive, book smart and in some respects decent man, but also possesses a bit of a psychopathic streak, that comes out in full force under the influence of the Spider priests. He is, in other words, his creepy self for most of the book. The combination of basically decent actions and a ruthless policy of conquest is one you don't come across often in Fantasy. We have seen it in the previous novels however, and in this one we have to wait until the very end before we see cracks starting to appear.

I have often wondered what this series could have been if Abraham had taken a few more chances. He consciously avoids a number of overused tropes of the genre (the promised one, a clear good versus evil story, quests for magical artifacts etcetera) and includes elements in the plot that you don't come across often. The banking, the way he handles female characters and his take on religious fanaticism are good examples of that. Despite all that, the series has a very familiar feel to it for readers of epic fantasy. As Abraham said himself, he aims to do epic fantasy exceptionally well. While te result is familiar, comfortable and pleasant reading, it does leave me with the sense of unfulfilled potential. The Widow's House is another solid entry in the series but one that leaves me in doubt whether the final volume will be able to make me shake the feeling this series could have been more than Abraham has made of it.

Book Details
Title: The Widow's House
Author: Daniel Abraham
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 493
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-316-20398-2
First published: 2014

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice, the debut novel of Ann Leckie, has been taking science fiction by storm. It is the first in a trilogy and has been drawing a lot of attention since it was published last year and is looking like a hot favourite to sweep the awards this season. It has already won the BSFA, Nebula and Clarke Awards and it is still in the race for the Campbell Award, the Locus Award for first novel and of course the Hugo. Ancillary Justice was also nominated for The Philip K. Dick Award but that one was awarded to Countdown City by Ben H. Winters. I'm probably overlooking a few other awards and nominations too. In short, a very impressive haul. I'm always a bit wary of books surrounded by this much hype but I decided to give it a go anyway as part of the 12 awards in 12 months reading challenge over at WWend.

The story is a far future science fiction, in which artificial intelligence, space travel and cloning techniques have advanced greatly. We meet our main character, Breq, on a remote planet, where, after a search that has taken almost two decades, revenge is within reach. On the last stretch of the journey Breq meets someone from her past. A time when service to the galaxy-spanning empire of the Radch meant controlling thousands of bodies and being reduced to a single one seemed impossible. Breq is determined to carry on with her plans but this meeting with her past complicates things considerably.

The novel contains a lot of elements that space opera in particular is rife with. Cloning, galactic empires, mysterious alien races and artificial intelligence is hardly new to science fiction. Leckie examines what it is to be human through alien intelligence, tackles empires and the morality of their drive to continually expand, and explores discrimination though the treatment of clones. I can think of dozens of books exploring this idea, quite a few of them doing a better job than Leckie is doing here. So far, there is nothing special about this novel.

What is probably the most inventive part of Ancillary Justice, the very thing that makes the book rake in five star reviews by the dozen,  is Leckie's treatment of gender. Breq used to be a spaceship controlling thousands of clones. It is never explicitly stated in the novel but one would assume both male and female bodies. Breq is referred to as she but cannot be considered to have a gender, or at least not one that is contained in the male/female spectrum. To make matters more complicated, Breq isn't usually sure whether she is dealing with men or women herself.She often resorts to guesses and throughout the novel most characters are referred to as she, although there is no indication of whether or not they actually are.

Breq herself comments on it once early on in the novel.

"I can't see under your clothes. And even if I could, that's not always a reliable indicator."

Chapter 7

Leckie's treatment of gender drives home how important gender is in our culture and language. The moment you're not sure, it poses all sorts of linguistic and cultural problems. Leckie doesn't feel the need to drive this particular point home but the reader can't help but wonder how complicated things can get for someone who doesn't fit neatly into either category. Leckie makes it hard on the reader to an extent, especially with the character of Seivarden, who is referred to as both he and she in the novel. The text can be confusing at times, it demands that the reader pays attention to the scene as in some parts of the novel personal pronouns can't be relied on convey to whom the narrator is referring. In other parts of the novel the author simply defaults to she to avoid making things too complicated. The result for me, and I think hat was what Leckie was aiming for, is that for the most part, I didn't assign genders to the characters at all.

The second element that drew my attention in the novel is the concept of ancillaries. Breq is what is left of a starship called Justice of Toren. She is used to controlling both the ship and thousands of clones, or ancillaries as they are referred to in the book. These bodies are not considered human and are easily replaced. Breq ending up in one means she is caught in a situation where she is forced to consider herself an individual rather than the tool the body she inhabits used to be. I'm not entirely sure Leckie makes the most of it. With the loss of her Ancillaries and primary body the starship, Breq has lost not only part of her body but also a large part of her sensory input, memory and intelligence. She knows this but by the time we meet her, she is so used to it that we hardly see her struggle to adjust. That would have been an interesting challenge for the character, something that is fundamental in shaping the creature we meet as Breq. Instead, Leckie chooses to focus on her feelings of guilt over the events that resulted in the destruction of the largest part of her, which I suppose, is more important to the plot.

Where Breq looses her bodies, the ruler of the Radch struggles with the opposite problem. She (or he) is an entity made up of thousands of bodies. It isn't revealed if the Radch is in fact human in origin or an artificial intelligence but she does control thousands of bodies spread out over the empire to govern. It seems like an ideal solution, to be everywhere at once and keep an eye on everything would probably be the wet dream of every tyrant, but what if the various parts of this entity don't agree with each other? There is a certain weakness in this story line. It is never explained how a single mind can keep itself (him, her it, I'm confusing myself now) from knowing what the opinions of its various bodies are. I guess you could see it as something of a multiple personality disorder. Maybe the Radch is human in origin after all. It contrasts with Breq's struggle in interesting ways however, and makes me curious about what will happen when Breq manages to get to the core of Radch's personality.

Does that mean Ancillary Justice is deserving of the whole shelf of awards it is winning at the moment? I don't think so. It is an interesting debut, a Campbell (if she is still eligible) or Locus Award for first novel might even be in order, but I don't think it is good enough to really propel Leckie to science fiction stardom. A novel that leans so heavily on one single aspect to make it stand out in the crowd simply doesn't merit that kind of attention in my opinion. That being said, I did enjoy it quite a lot and I am curious about several dangling story lines I assume Leckie means to pick up in the next book. She is an author to keep an eye on for sure. The second volume is expected in October. I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

Book Details
Title: Ancillary Justice
Author: Ann Leckie
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 386
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-356-50240-3
First published: 2013

The Tyrant's Law - Daniel Abraham

The Tyrant's Law is the third of five  novels in Daniel Abraham's Dagger and Coin series. It has been published in spring but back then I hadn't read the second volume yet. Now I've finally caught up with the series. Hopefully I'll be able to do a more timely review of the fourth novel, The Widow's House, which is scheduled for the spring of 2014. Although the series is neither very original or hugely challenging, I've enjoyed the previous two novels a lot. They adhere to the conventions of epic fantasy and make for very comfortable reading. I don't think these novels will end up on any lists of highlights of the genre but I'm pretty sure I'll end up reading all five anyway.

Geder, the Lord-Protector of Antea, has defeated the nation of Asterihold in a quick war. The nations have been embroiled in political and military conflict for generations but this appears to be a decisive blow. This conquest doesn't mean the war is over though. Geder catches wind of a conspiracy against him. The Timzinae, one of the thirteen races of humanity that inhabit the world are behind supposed to be behind it and so Geder's army turns its gaze to the nations where they are most populous. War will soon engulf them and once again Geder's priests play an important part in his campaign.

If there is such a thing as middle book syndrome in five book series then this novel is definitely suffering from it to some degree. As usual Abraham has complete control over his plot but I do feel that the novel lacks a strong story arc of its own. Abraham is getting people from A to B, setting up conflicts for the two concluding volumes of the series and delving into the history of the world. Quite a lo  achieve in one novel but still the result isn't quite as satisfying as The King's Blood.

Abraham keeps the number of points of view down to four in this novel. Geder, Clara, Marcus and Cithrin, all of whom we met before. It is Geder's actions that drive most of the story though. As in previous books, Abraham portrays him as a man who essentially means well but does some seriously creepy things. Protect by his position from the consequences of his actions he rules with an iron fist, depending on the talents of his priests to keep the momentum of the war going. His judgments are often harsh and usually rash. Once his is convinced he knows the truth he applies his brand of justice without digging for motivations or how a person's actions might fit into the larger picture. Geder thinks he will be able to retire gracefully once the prince comes of age but given the speed he is alienating people from him, that seems very unlikely to say the least. The mixture of naiveté and ruthlessness makes for a very disturbing character.

Cithrin, one of the more interesting characters in the novel seems to have come to a standstill of sorts. She is sent to do a years apprenticeship with a more experienced banker. The war interferes however and she is forced to return to her old style of risky banking. I guess what Abraham is trying to do with this character is having her develop a personal and professional moral compass. In the later stages of the book she makes some progress but early on her story line drags a bit. Her plot line ends on a very interesting note however, she seems to have underestimated Geder. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the next book.

Back in Camnipol, Clara is picking up the pieces of her life. She may be disgraced at court but at least her children are still in a position to regain their standing among the nobility. Her life revolves around bringing down Geder now. Left without influence at court, she patiently looks for other ways to disrupt Geder's war. I thought Abraham did a very good job with Clara. Her perspective on life changes drastically but given the strain she is under, the change doesn't feel forced. It's very interesting to see how a person who is essentially considered to be marginalized manages to impact events to such a degree.

Marcus is out and about traveling with Kit, one of the few people in the world who has a good grasp of what is going on at Geder's court. He realizes that the world is in far more danger than it appears to be and sets out to destroy the source of the power behind the throne of Antea. It seems like a classic quest story line but Abraham does give it a nice twist. Little progress is made in resolving the complex feelings Cithrin and Marcus have for each other however. Like in the previous book, Marcus is definitely the least interesting character that gets a point of view.

Abraham set out to write a classic epic fantasy and do it exceptionally well. I'm not convinced he is living up to that ambition with these books but the fact is they are very fast paced and entertaining reads. They are also much more likely to gain him a large audience than his less conventional Long Price Quartet. If you liked the previous two volumes the only thing that will probably bother you about this novel, is that the fourth part is not available yet. That or the fact that the series has not been blessed with particularly good cover art. With The Tyrant's Law, Abraham has added a solid volume to his traditional epic fantasy series. I for one, am curious how he'll bring this series to a close.

Book Details
Title: The Tyrant's Law
Author: Daniel Abraham
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 497
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-316-08070-5
First published: 2013

Shaman - Kim Stanley Robinson

I didn't read Robinson's previous novel, 2312, until a year after it was fist published. I guess I felt the story Robinson was writing had too many things in common with what he had done before that I couldn't get really excited about it. It turned out to be a good read but not one that ranks among my favourites. Shaman on the other hand, is one of those books I wanted to read as soon as it came out. In fact, I even tried (and failed) to get a review copy. Robinson's work is much more varied than the epic science fictions he is best known for and this book is a good example of that. Shaman takes us back in time instead of forward. That in itself is something Robinson has done before in The Years of Rice and Salt and Galileo's Dream, but certainly not this far. Shaman is a novel set during the ice age, some thirty-two thousand years ago.

Loon is the apprentice of the moody shaman Thorn. He didn't ask for the job, it just happened to him. After the death of his father, Thorn's real apprentice as Loon thinks of him, and his mother, the shaman and the herb woman Heather take care of him. He is not particularly interested in most of what Thorn is trying to teach him except for the art of making cave paintings. Loon is determined to find his own path in the unforgiving world. The fist step on that path is the wander, an initiation into manhood. That is far from his last challenge though.

Throughout his career Robinson has mixed in the evolution of humanity into his novels. One particularly clear example is Frank Vanderwal, a character in the Science in the Capital trilogy. He is constantly explaining modern human behaviour in the light of patterns we picked up while still being 'primates on the plain.' He even lives as something of an urban hunter-gatherer for a while in Fifty Degrees Below. Another example that comes to mind in Nirgal's run with the primitives in Blue Mars. More primitive modes of living in modern times are thoroughly discussed in Robinson's novels. Shaman itself, appears to be in part inspired by the Chauvet Cave, a site with extensive cave paintings, discovered in the Ardèche department of France. I recommenced you have a look at some of the art in that cave after finishing the book.

While many of Robinson's characters can opt for a (temporarily) more primitive lifestyle, Loon doesn't have a choice. He simply know any better. What keeps him busy are the most primal concerns of all: food, shelter and sex. What struck me about this novel was the sharp contrast with what is probably the most famous series of novels set in prehistory; Jean Auel's Earth Children series. Where she presents life during the ice age as utopia, where a human being can make a decent living with a bit of planning and a good set of survival skills, and where paradise is lost after the discovery of the link between sex and procreation, Robinson's reality is much harsher and probably closer to the truth. Loon suffers periods of starvation followed by a summer of plenty. His weight fluctuates considerably over the course of the seasons and he is always aware of the upcoming lean season. All things considered it is a miracle he still has time for his more spiritual pursuits.

In essence Shaman is a coming of age story. When we meet Loon he is very much a boy, unsure what to do with his life. Throughout the book he grows and builds the confidence he'll need to eventually step out of the shadow of the previous generation. It is quite a transformation to see him change from a moody boy to a confident man. Loon has a few brushes with death over the course of the book. Perhaps the most dramatic section of the novel and a turning point in Loon's life is his track back to his people after months of captivity with a northern tribe. It shows him the world is larger than he imagined. It's a journey that will push him to physical and mental extremes. Such treks show up in several of Robinson's other novels as well. Valerie's journey across Antarctica with her clients in toe comes to mind, as well as the evacuation of Burroughs in Green Mars. All of them are life threatening but none are quite are harrowing as Loon's journey though. The question of whether or not Thorn has a hand in Click's death will stay with the reader long after the last page has been turned.

Robinson spends relatively little time on the landscape and ecology of the land. Where in other books he is known for long passages of scientific and philosophical theories and speculations. Shaman is much more direct. Loon tackles the challenges that are right before him. He is at home in his environment. He accepts it as it is for the most part without considering his place in it or asking why the world looks the way it does. What keeps Loon wondering is people; the passage of time, the cycles of life and changing of generations, the cultures and survival strategies of other tribes are what occupies his mind. He may not realize it himself but he does posses the kind of curiosity and mindset that would suit a shaman.Something he starts to accept over the course of the novel.

I had high expectations of this book and Robinson's met them. How often does that happen? In a way Shaman is very different from the books that Robinson has written until now. It lacks his passion for the process of science for instance. On the other hand, there are lots of thematic links to his other works. It may not be the solar system spanning science fiction of his more popular books, I still thinks that even fans of his work that don't usually venture outside the genre will appreciate this. Loon's journey is fascinating, harrowing and at times heartbreaking. The only minor flaw in the novel is that after a dramatic opening section it takes Robinson a while to get the story going. It is hardly worth mentioning really. Shaman is an absorbing read. For me, it is one of the novels of 2013 you have to have read.

Book Details
Title: Shaman
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 456
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-84149-999-4
First published: 2013

The King's Blood - Daniel Abraham

I read The Dragon's Path, the fist novel in Daniel Abraham's Dagger and Coin quintet in 2011, not too long after it had been published. It was good epic fantasy novel that promised even more interesting things in the second book. Somehow I never got around to reading it though. Abraham is quite a prolific author, publishing under three pseudonyms and the third part of the series, The Tyrant's Law is already available. Past time I caught up with him again. Fortunately, the Dagger and Coin books are fast reads. I read this one in a week, alternating with Robert Silverberg's At Winter's End. The King's Blood proved to be a very enjoyable novel, I may have to get a copy of book three some time soon. After I reduce the too read list a bit further that is.

After uncovering the plot to assassinate the heir-apparent to the throne of Antea, Geder, a son of a minor noble, has been appointed protector of the crown prince. His star is to rise even faster when the King, rapidly approaching the end of his life, asks him to deal with the neighboring state of Asterlihold. They have been involved in the plot and must be dealt with. With his new religious adviser at his side, the inexperienced Geder soon finds out that war is inevitable.

Cithrin in the mean time, discovers that being accepted by the Medean bank is not everything she thought it would be. Too young to sign legally binding contracts, her every move is overseen by an employee of the bank; a thoroughly unpleasant woman named Pyk. It is not that much longer until she reaches her majority but the lack of responsibility is beginning to chafe. Cithrin decides to travel to the city of Carse, where the holding company of the bank is located. She intends to find a way to regain her control over the bank but soon finds herself in involved in another of the bank's projects.

Like the previous volume, The King's Blood is a highly readable and in most ways fairly traditional epic fantasy. Abraham refines and expands the cultures, races and characters he introduced in the first volume. There is more detail on the thirteen races that inhabit the world for instance, and even an appendix I mentioned missing in my review of the first volume. In between the action there is also quite a bit of attention for the history of the world. The disappeared dragons are mentioned on a number of occasions although their role in the story remains unclear for the moment. Where in the first book the world the author created was still a bit sketchy, it is beginning to feel properly fleshed out in the this second volume.

Geder again is one of the more interesting characters in the book. He is utterly unpredictability. At times he behaves like a hurt little boy, but he can also be ruthless, understanding and caring. He makes enemies without realizing it, rationalizes the most brutal decisions and yet remains completely naive when it comes to the political realities of the realm he is trying to govern or the perception other powerful players have of him. All things considered, he is a pretty scary man, but at the same time he is sympathetic at some level. What I especially like about him is the difference in public perception and the reality of his relationship with his religious adviser.

The focus of Cithrin's story line has shifted a bit from financial manipulations to a more adventure oriented plot. With her hands tied when it comes to banking, she is exploring other avenues to regain control over her life. Her uncanny ability to see how money flows is not quite as noticeable in this book, although she does tend to think in terms of trade and investment, even when looking at political mattes. It is a limitation she doesn't seem to be aware of. One she will no doubt have to overcome in later books.

The activities of Cithrin and Geder drive the story but Abraham include a number of more mature characters as well. The conservative nobleman Dawson is forced into a difficult position when his views of society and religion clash with Geder's new order of things. He is not a man who bends easily as his family will find out at their expense. Dawson doesn't change much over the course of the book, his actions are highly predictable,  but his wife Clara,  also a point of view character, promises to be more interesting in the next volumes.

The other mature point of view character is the mercenary captain Marcus Wester. I must admit I didn't like him very much. Marcus is a man haunted by his past, he feels responsible for the death of his family and is now trying to make up for it by protecting Cithrin. Which is not working very well as he has left the city to go to Carse. Marcus wallows in his guilt and does a number of stupid things when he hears rumors that might mean Cithrin is in trouble. I think I can see what Abraham has in store for this character but in this novel, I thought he was annoying. Fortunately he seems to have found a purpose again that the end of it.

Abraham does not intend something hugely original with this series. His Long Price quartet is much more challenging in that respect. That being said, Abraham has a control over the plot that is rare in epic fantasy. He seems to know exactly where he's going and how to get there. No meandering side plots, dozens of point of view characters or long rambles on the customs, culture or history of particular places. All of it is worked in to the story to the extent it is needed and not beyond. It's an ability many a fantasy author should be jealous of.

Book Details
Title: The King's Blood
Author: Daniel Abraham
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 501
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-84149-889-8
First published: 2012

2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson

I'm terribly late reading this book. Usually when Robinson has a new novel out I read it as soon as I can get my hands on it. For some reason I didn't get around to it until now. 2312 has been doing fine on its own though. It has been nominated for a truckload of awards and recently won the Nebula. It has also been nominated for a Hugo but I'm not sure it if has quite the appeal to take that one home too. I haven't read any of the other nominated novels though, maybe it does stand out in that crowd. Whether or not it will win more awards, the novel does take a special place in Robinson's oeuvre. I think that to fully appreciate this work, having read some of Robinson's other books is required.

Three centuries in the future, humanity has spread across the solar system. They are increasingly long lived, dual gendered and come in all shapes and sized. Out in space they enjoy a historically unprecedented prosperity but for all that progress, humanity's destiny is still tied to old Earth. The planet is an overpopulated, exhausted, polluted, ecological wasteland, struggling to support the vast masses of people still living there. Earth's instability is a threat to the entire solar system as sculptor and ecologist Swan Er Hong finds out after the death of her grandmother Alex. It seems Alex was the center of a group of people spread across the solar system who are working on the problem. Now it is up to her to keep the project going. A project that experiences resistance from an unlikely source as it turns out.

Robinson is often accused of using infodumps in his novels. Some of his most interesting scenes are in those supposed infodumps in my opinion but people who disagree will be glad to know he has changed his approach to conveying information ot the reader a bit. In 2312 he  alternates chapters, mostly form the point of view of three main characters, with list of related concepts and extracts of various sources giving the reader an overview of the time line. They partly serve as epigraphs, although strictly speaking they are separate from the chapters. Many of the most interesting tidbits in this novel can be found in the extracts and they give the reader enough background to understand the actions and motivations of the main characters. It's an interesting way of structuring the novel. Some of the more plot oriented readers may feel is slows things down but the lists and extracts do contain vital information. Personally I feel Robinson wouldn't be such an interesting author without that density of information, real scientific concepts and theories and the tremendous sense of place that radiates from his writing. Putting some of that in the extracts changes the dynamics of the chapters some. Whether you will like it is a matter of taste but it does make 2312  a faster read than some of his other novels.

It is not uncommon for Robinson to add lengthy descriptions of places and large sections of interior monologue to his novels but 2312 does have a plot of sorts. I guess you could say it is a mix of a love story and a mystery. The author has stated that he set out to write about a romance between a mercurial and a saturnine character. Swan is from mercury and certainly fits the description. She is quite unpredictable and prone to mood swings, as the saturnine character, Fitz Wahram experiences form up close. I'm not entirely sure that I would describe Wahram, who hails from the Saturn league, a collection of inhabited moons and asteroids around the gas giant, as saturnine though. He is very even tempered, to the point of being boring even, but I wouldn't really use any of the more negative traits associated with that particular term to him. Maybe Wahram grew on Robinson while writing. He didn't grow on me though, Swan is by far the more interesting of the pair.

Opinions are divided over this work and I can see why. It reaches back to some of Robinson's most popular works, the Mars trilogy in particular. It's not a sequel in the traditional sense of the word however. There are thematic links and even one passage where Robinson appears to refer to Peter Clayborne's adventure in orbit in Red Mars, but history obviously unfolded quite differently in the 2312 time line. Martian terraforming in 2312 was influenced by Lowell's depictions of the supposed Martian canals for instance. The situation on Mars is not discussed in detail in this work though, the main characters don't spend much time there.

Mercury and Venus feature much more prominently in the novel. Robinson revives Terminator, a city on rails forever being pushed forward by the tracks expanding in Mercury's sunrise. It showed up in The Memory of Whiteness as well as Blue Mars, although the details are a bit different if I remember correctly. Mercury is too close to the sun ever to be fully terraformed but there is a twilight zone on the planet where the light and heat are such people will not be cooked instantly but merely perish from the lack of an atmosphere without proper suits. The city as seen though the eyes of Swan is a piece of art as well as a shelter from the unforgiving conditions outside. Its a marvelous concept and a sharp contrast with the situation on Earth Robinson describes later on in the novel.

Venus is more of a political battleground and one of the places where events relating to the mystery part of the novel are taking place. There is a deep running disagreement on how to terraform the planet, which with it soaring temperatures, thick carbon dioxide atmosphere and sulphuric acid rains, is just as inhospitable as Mercury. Humanity's inability to think in solutions that will take more than a lifetime to achieve has lead to the installation of a sunshield which makes the planet vulnerable. Robinson turns Venus into a dark place, full of muddy politics and shady deals. I think in the end, the story of the character who spends most time there, a man by the name of Kiran, is a bit underexposed. I can't shake the feeling that his story has been inserted into the novel at a later stage.

What did strike me about the novel  is the radically different approach to terraforming the novel takes compared to the Mars trilogy. Where in those books a great philosophical debate raged about whether or not to terraform and to what extent, in 2312 no holds barred attempts at rapid terraforming are described. Moons are dismantled, or have their surface changed into graffiti art, meteors are crashed into the surface to speed up rotation, countless asteroids are hollowed out and turned into terraria, sunshieds and mirrors are installed to deflect or transfer light and atmospheres are stripped or created. It brutal and seemingly unguided. In fact one of the characters mentions that they might have been in too much of a hurry to terraform the various planets and moons of the solar system. Very small groups of people feel entitled to take decisions on a planetary scale that are very had to undo. It is a somewhat unsettling way of thinking really. Robinson uses it to great effect when the main characters find out that you can't tear down a garden shed on Earth without pissing at least a dozen people off.

Another thing I noticed about the descriptions of the various places the main characters visit - and where Robinson departs from most of his other big science fiction stories -  is that the solar system looks huge and small at the same time. Robinson firmly declares the stars out of reach in any meaningful span of time (not that that stops them from trying anyway) and that puts a limit on human development. With the many terraforming projects in full swing or more or less completed, humanity appears to be once again out of places to expand. Maybe in that light it is not surprising that by 2312 attention is drawn back to the cradle of humanity.

Earth and the rest of the solar system seem to be at odds over many things. Parts of the still not fully unified planet are firmly in the clutches of capitalist economies, while others are moving to different systems. Is space, the Mondragon system is more popular. It's a large scale version of the cooperatives in the Mondragon region of Spain, a system that has been mention in earlier novels by Robinson. Environmentally, things are little better. A huge number of species are only surviving because of the asteroid terraria that house them. Complete collapse of Earth's ecosystem appears to be a matter of time. The interesting thing about these passages is that despite the disasters that struck the planet, Robinson still describes it as a beautiful place as seen through the eyes of the space dwelling characters.

There is a great deal of awareness in this novel of the effect humanity has on the environment. It's one thing that make Robinson's novels so fascinating to me. In space the effect is obvious. Humanity has to make the environment there to survive. On Earth, many people take it for granted but just about everywhere on the planet you can see the effect we're having if you know where to look. Robinson knows and it shows in his writing. His characters know it too, which makes the almost casual decision to take on large and very invasive terraforming projects even more interesting. Ann Clayborne would probably faint. One of the most interesting questions the novel raises in this regard is whether terraforming Earth can be done. Think about it for a while, the concept is daunting.

The novel contains lots of familiar concepts and ideas but there is one element that I don't think Robinson has covered in any kind of detail in his previous work, it is the matter of artificial intelligence. By the end of the novel it is still not quite clear if the quantum computers such as Swan's Pauline (a reference to the device owned by John Boone in Red Mars) have reached self awareness or consciousness but the story line is certainly food for thought. I wouldn't have minded if Robinson had dug into this a bit further, something that might have improved the mystery part of the novel too.

In the end I enjoyed reading 2312 a lot but I do feel that Robinson uses a lot of ideas in this novel that he has covered in detail in other books. It's not that he does it poorly, it is just that for someone who has read most of his other work, the novel offers relatively few unexpected elements. On the other hand, it was written in such a way that I feel you can't possibly get the most out of the novel without having read at least some of his previous books. That, in my mind, is not a good combination. Structurally and conceptually 2312 is an interesting novel but as a tale of a major turning point in human history is fails to pull together like some of his other novels do. I guess I feel the novel doesn't achieve all it might have. That being said, it is ambitious, packed with fascinating ideas and concepts and contains some jaw-dropping descriptions of various places in the solar system might look like. Which is a lot more than many other science fiction novels achieve these days. Maybe Robinson does have a shot at that Hugo after all.

Book Details
Title: 2312
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 561
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-316-09812-0
First published: 2012

A Memory of Light - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

At long last, the fourteenth and final instalment of The Wheel of Time series has arrived. I sympathize with people who had the bad luck to pick this series up in 1990, when it was thought to become a trilogy. Personally I didn't pick this series up until the summer of 1999, just before the mass market paperback release of The Path of Daggers, book eight in the series. That was less fourteen years ago so I really shouldn't complain. Especially considering all the fun I've had with this series in the mean time. That being said, it is past time the series was brought to a close so I started the concluding volume with a mixture of regret and relief. That feeling stayed with me after I finished it. Relief that the conclusion is here and regret that Jordan didn't finish it himself. As unfair as it is to Sanderson, who, as far as I can tell did his stinking best, it would have been different. If Jordan had managed to tone down this obsession with details a bit, it might even have been better. But that was not to be, the book is what it is and I think most readers who stuck with it this long, will like it just fine.

I'm not going to try to write a spoiler free review. This is a classic example of a fantasy epic. If you have read the previous thirteen books, the ending of this one should not be a surprise. Some of the details might.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, book one in the Inheritance trilogy, is one of the most discussed releases of 2009. It has launched Jemisin's writing career and since it's release four more books have appeared. I missed this novel at the time and only really noticed it once the nominations for the Hugo and Nebula awards came in for that year.  The reviews I've read about this novel have been mostly positive so I figured it was about time I caught up. Jemisin's approach to fantasy in this novel turns out to be very much oriented towards religion. I must admit I am a bit puzzled by the great number of positive reviews and award nominations. I liked this book well enough but it is certainly not everybody's cup of tea. For a début it is a very interesting work though.

Yeine has been raised in one of the barbaric nations of the north. After her civilized mother's death, she is summoned to the world's centre of power; the magical city of Sky. All nations of the world are controlled from this one miraculous place. With the power of a god behind them the rulers of Sky reign supreme. On arrival, Yeine finds her maternal heritage to be very distasteful. Her huge family is strictly hierarchical and although some safeguards have been put in place by the god they serve, decadence, cruelty and pettiness are rampant. What is worse, Yeine finds out she has been named one of the three possible successors to the current, ageing ruler. Yeine is not interested in taking on the burden of leadership but to her rivals, she is a threat. Staying alive long enough to figure out what drives her family and how she can survive in this lethal environment is going to be a challenge.

The story is told from the first person point of view, for which I always have something of a weakness. In this case, Jemisin does something very interesting with it by plainly stating that the narrator is dead. So far for the much heard criticism that using a first person perspective is a spoiler of sorts. It also allows Jemisin to seamlessly introduce a whole lot of worldbuilding into the tale. Yeine is from a backward province and has never been to Sky. Her mother didn't think it was necessary to teach her much about the city. Yenie is very naive during the opening stages of the novel and that allows the reader to take in a lot of the details that would have been obvious to a long time resident. It does make Yeine a very typical fantasy protagonist though. Girl from an out of the way part of the realm finds out she is heir to a kingdom. Fortunately, Jemisin is smart enough not to make this the centre of the novel.

The question that really interests Yeine is what happened to her mother. She suspects her mother was killed as part of the political machinations in Sky but finding out the truth in an environment here deception is a second nature to most, turns out to be very hard. Soon she is lost in a political game of which she understands neither the rules nor the stakes. As she reveals layer after layer of power struggles the stakes prove to be high indeed. Behind the Lord of Sky, the god Itempas is in complete control. After the the killing of one companions and the enslavement of the other he rules the universe as he sees fit, even forcing his defeated offspring into human shape, their powers at the disposal of his human ruler. This struggle between the gods is where Jemisin takes a different turn from most other fantasy series. These chained divine creatures play an important role in the plot.

Jemisin portrays them as larger than life beings, with dramatic powers and equally dramatic flaws. Yeine walks among them, bargains with them and to a point sympathizes with them. The theological underpinnings of this novel are complex. The gods remind me of those described by Homer in temperament, although the story of creation and cosmology seem more hinduistic, with a force of creation, a maintaining force and a destructive force (or Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). With one of the three most important deities in complete control, the universe is out of balance. I guess we can see where this is going in the rest of the trilogy. Again, Jemisin doesn't take the obvious choice. She uses destructive god, imprisoned in human form, to inject sexual tension and romance into the story. He is dark, dangerous, unpredictable and apparently irresistible. This might not be everybody's favourite but personally I think it isn't overdone and adds something to the story.

The entire novel is set in just a couple of weeks, Yeine never gets the time to find her balance in Sky. Things move more rapidly than she can keep up with making it a very fast paced read. As fantasy novels go, it is not a huge book but still a substantial read. I read it in a few days, during a week where my reading time was severely restricted. I wonder if a bit more measured pace might have done more credit to some of the more technical aspects of the novel. Jemisin does a number of interesting things with point of view and playing with genre conventions and it is very easy to ignore those in favour of the plot. 

All in all I thought The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was a very good read but not quite as original as it has been made out to be. It is still firmly rooted in traditional fantasy, and the story of a youngster from a backward part of the world discovering her heritage is not exactly unheard of in the genre, the twists in the plot don't really change that. Still, Jemisin is obviously talented and clearly willing to challenge genre conventions. That is a very interesting combination, something fantasy needs more of. It may be a while before I get around to it, but I will be reading the rest of this trilogy.

Book Details
Title: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 425
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-316-04392-2
First published: 2009