Central Station - Lavie Tidhar

Between 2011 and 2014 a series of short stories by Lavie Tidar appeared in such magazines as Interzone, Clarkesworld and Analog, as well as a couple of anthologies. All stories centred on Central Station, a space port facility located in the vicinity of Tel Aviv that has grown to become a city in itself. Tachyon Publications is now publishing a book containing rewritten versions of these stories with a few original pieces thrown in. The result is not quite a collection and not quite a novel. Publisher's Weekly calls it a mosaic novel in their review. Perhaps that is the  best description of this work. It is not a book that easily falls into a category whichever way you look at it and all the more fascinating for that.

Gathered around the foot of Central Station are a quarter of a million people from all corners of the globe. They have created a society with a huge number of cultural influences, a place where human and robot form a gliding scale, where genetically engineered beings are commonplace and where the boundary between the physical and virtual world is thin. In this melting pot of cultures, religions and advanced technology, Boris Chong returns after a long absence. He will have to deal with an old lover, a father in poor health, a child he's helped create and someone who has followed him down from space among other challenges.

I name Boris Chong the central figure in the book but that is probably not entirely accurate. Many of the story lines are connected to him but the real centre is Central Station itself. Tidhar is in search of the genius loci as much as the motivation of his characters. Throughout the book you get the feeling that the place is on the verge of awakening, of achieving self-awareness. It's a looming presence, always watching over the shoulder of the characters. It reminded me a lot of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station in that respect. Central Station is a book with many influences and that novel is probably one of them.

The text refers heavily to the greats of speculative fiction. From Bram Stoker's vampires to Frank Herbert's Sandworms, just about every creature or technology you can imagine seems to have found a place in the chapters. There are so many of them that I probably missed half during this first read. There's a dash of New Wave, a helping of Cyberpunk and a pinch of Philip K. Dick. All these ideas are mixed into an almost surreal world, one that pays homage to almost every subgenre in science fiction since the Golden Age. It's a book that has got a lot to offer for the experienced science fiction reader.

The plot meanders quite a bit. Through the eyes of several characters we explore the various aspects of Central Station. Some characters are very old and give us an insight into the past of the place. Others see it for the first time and experience the bewildering environment with fresh eyes. There are lots of tragedies worked into the stories. Characters struggle with imminent death and the possibility of immortality, drowning in perfectly stored memories, complicated old and new love affairs and how to deal with intelligence that is not quite human. Despite meeting most of them only briefly, the reader is made intensely aware of their state of mind.

With so many cultural influences on the society that has formed around Central Station, it is no surprise that the language is influenced as well. Most characters speak several languages, and Tidhar introduces a pidgin language early on in the book as well. There is a bit of English in it but a lot seems to come out of other languages. There's bit of Yiddish in the novel too. Throughout the book Tidhar pays a lot of attention to the surroundings. The descriptions of the city and its institution are colourful,  rich and tantalizing. There is constantly the feeling that you really want to explore one of the elements of Central Station further. Tidhar keeps us on track however. Many of the fascinating things that can be found in Central Station are only mentioned in the passing.

All in all Central Station is one of the most peculiar books I've read in a while. Tidhar could have made it into a collection but chose to rewrite the stories to make them fit into one narrative. It would probably have worked as a more traditional collection, but I must admit the rewrites add something to the book. The meandering plot will not please everybody. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that Tidhar refers to so many classics in science fiction, yet chooses a structure for his work that not many of those writers would have considered. It's a work in conversation with the genre but not afraid to go off the beaten track. As such it is not a book for everybody, but if you like a book that is a bit different, Central Station might be your thing. Personally,  I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't be surprised to see this one on the Nebula shortlist next year.

Book Details
Title: Central Station
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Pages: 290
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: E-ARC
ISBN: 978-1-61696-215-9
First published: 2016

Falling in Love with Hominids - Nalo Hopkinson

Tachyon Publications publishes a lot of very interesting fiction for which there is a limited market. Novellas and short novels, single author collections and themed anthologies for the most part. It is not material that is likely to end up on best-seller lists but for the real fan of fantasy and science fiction, it is a treasure trove of works that would otherwise easily be overlooked. I've been reading a couple of these a year since I joined NetGalley. Tachyon doesn't seem to have a problem with me being located in the Netherlands. Where I get frequent refusals because of my location from other publishers, Tachyon is generous with advance copies. So in the interest of full disclosure, I received a copy of Falling in Love with Hominids from the publisher in exchange for a review.

This collection is my first encounter with Nalo Hopkinson's work. She is originally from Jamaica but has lived in several other places as well before ending up in Canada. In 2011 she relocated to California, where she currently resides. Falling in Love with Hominids collects eighteen pieces of short fiction, all previously published between 2002 and 2014. There is no overarching theme or link between the stories. There are a few recurring elements of course, and some of them are linked to Hopkinson's novels, but other than that the pieces all appear to stand alone.

Hopkinson's writing is very diverse. It ranges from post-apocalyptic to surreal and from historical to contemporary fantasy. There are a few things that keep coming back in the stories though. There are references to Caribbean/African tradition and folklore in several stories, although Shakespeare and western mythologies pop up too. Hopkinson also uses a very varied cast of characters, people of all races, genders and sexual orientations appear in her stories. Although she doesn't emphasize it in most of the stories in this collection, there is a sensitivity to issues relating to racism and sexism in her writing. For some reason, I also get the impression that Hopkinson's home is full of house plants.

There's a few pieces that connected with me in particular. For some reason most of the ones I liked best are in the first half of the collection. The first is the one that opens the collection. The Easthound (2012) is a post-apocalyptic tale seen from the point of view of a child. It is a very creepy story. The author uses the point of view of the main character to throw the reader off balance. Without adults around, the children create their own view of the world, one where stories and fantasy mix with the deadly reality of their situation. The characters are children and at the same time wise beyond their years. An absolutely brilliant piece of writing.

Soul Case (2007) is more of a historical fantasy in which Hopkinson describes an assault on a community of escaped slaves. The story is based on a number of real communities that existed in various places in the Americas. Most of them were eventually destroyed by the colonial powers. I came across the story of the Jamaican Maroons in Maryse Condé's historical novel Children of Segu a while ago. She focusses on a different part of their history than Hopkinson does. The story is related to the novel Hopkinson is currently working on. I will have to keep an eye out for Blackheart Man. A novel length treatment of this topic could be a very interesting read.

In The Smile on the Face (2004) Hopkinson takes us in a very different direction. Although there is a reference to an early Christian saint it is much more contemporary. In essence it deals with a young girl whose changing body is getting her unwanted attention and is making her feel insecure about her looks. The guy in the story seems to be a bit too good to be true but it is a good look into the mind of a teenage girl and the bullshit they have to put up with in an age that seems to value appearance over anything else.

The final story I want to mention is Old Habits (2011). It is a ghost story set in a rather dreary mall. The main character was unfortunate enough to loose his life there and now he is stuck with a bunch of other ghosts who shared the same fate. They can't see the living, can't interact with them, and can't leave the mall. Or they can but what awaits them outside is just as uncertain as what awaits us after death. Most of the ghosts are not in a hurry. The loneliness and desperation of the ghosts is worked into this story very well. They strike you as a bit peculiar in the opening stages. Hopkinson then proceeds to make them almost inhuman in their hunger for a taste of life, and then shows us the tragic demise of the main character, bringing him back to being human again by killing him. Very disturbing.

A collection of such diversity as Hopkinson delivers here, will always contain a few stories that don't connect with the reader. There were a few that did little for me but overall I very much enjoyed Hopkinson's imaginative and varied approach to storytelling. In just over 200 pages she travels the length and breadth of speculative fiction. Falling in Love with Hominids is as good an invitation to delve deeper into an author's oeuvre as you are likely to get. I think I am going to take her up on that. It would appear that once again the to read stack has grown.

Book Details
Title: Falling in Love with Hominids
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Pages: 222
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-61696-199-2
First published: 2015

Slow Bullets - Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds has been producing novels at a steady pace now since the turn of the century. He's also written quite a few pieces of short fiction. Slow Bullets is a new novella, published by Tachyon in June. The publisher was kind enough to provide me with an advance copy. It looks like they decided to keep with the old cover style. His UK publisher Gollancz recently changed the cover style for his novels. They kept the font but the dark covers have been dropped. Slow Bullets is uncut space opera and doesn't appear to be related to any of his other works. I also found it to be light on physics that are included in many of Reynold's other works. It could be considered a good starting point for readers wanting to explore his works.

An interstellar war is coming to an end but the fighting is confused and not quite finished. Scur, a soldier recruited against her will, finds herself in the hands of the enemy. Word of a ceasefire has reached them but the enemy soldiers are not quite done settling scores. When Scur's side comes looking for her, they are forced to cut their fun with her short and leave her to die. When Scur wakes up, she is healed and on board a spaceship. When she gets out of her pod, it is clear things are not right. She spots a group of people in pursuit of one of the crew members and decides to act. A decision with far-reaching consequences.

Slow Bullets feels like a story that grew in the telling. Reynolds puts in enough material for a novel and at one point, quite abruptly cuts off a few storylines so he can focus on the one of the main character. Reynolds has his reasons to do this but when I had finished it, I was left with the feeling that I had read a condensed novel rather than a novella. As such, it is structurally not the prettiest novella you'll ever encounter. Reynolds himself did better with Troika for instance. Or Diamond Dogs for that matter. Some of the things Reynolds didn't pursue in the story make me wonder what a novel about the inhabitants of the ship would have looked like.

The stuff he does deal with is very recognizably Reynolds though. It's space opera on a large canvas. Interstellar war, advanced space ships, and aliens that are so far removed from human experience as to be incomprehensible. The only thing that is missing really is the exotic physics that show up in many of his works. Which might indeed have been a bit too much for such a short work. The descriptions of the aliens reminded me a bit of the unfolding proton Cixin Liu comes up with in his novel The Three-Body Problem.

The entire novella is told from the point of view of Scur, who is also the narrator of the story. What she is mostly concerned with, besides surviving, is passing on knowledge. The ship they are on is slowly losing memory. It contains a vast amount of knowledge. More than can possibly be stored by more old-fashioned means. How to survive is not the real dilemma she faces. They have more than enough resources for that. What to take with them is the real issue. These people are from a time when information is stored in huge quantities. All the soldiers on the ship carry a storage device in their body that registers their exploits. To be reduced to writing or rely on memory is to give up a large part of their past and identity. For Scur, who has accepted the fact that she will not return to her old home again, this is the ultimate sacrifice to be made for survival.

Reynolds raises an interesting point here. With our increasing reliance on digital data storage, several experts have been warning in recent years that we are facing a huge loss of data. How long before our CD-ROMs or DVDs no longer work? How long before the software to process them is no longer available for the newer machines? Digital storage has advantages, especially in terms of physical space required and the possibilities for quick data retrieval, but it is vulnerable in its own way. Then again, is it really so bad  if we lose all the nonsense people are putting on their Facebook pages or Twitter feeds? Or the bazillion hazy holiday pictures quickly snapped with a crappy digital camera? Does losing that profoundly affect your identity? There is data and data, as Scur soon realizes. What to save when storage capacity is limited is another question that bugs Scur. Especially because the inhabitants of the space ship are from different worlds, with different world views and religions. A choice that is bound to cause conflict.

Perhaps it is fitting that Scur falls back on the oldest form of storytelling for her tale. She appears to tell it from memory. It is rough in a way, lacks detains in some places, but does manage to convey Scur's thoughts and emotions very effectively. A sharp contrast with the accurate data storage and rational analytic tools the ships computer works with. Having Scur tell the story this way is in effect a very interesting twist on the unreliable narrator technique.

Slow Bullets is a very enjoyable novella. Reynolds makes some bold choices over the course of the story and not everybody will like those. In the end I think it turned out quite well. The novella does not quite have the beauty of some of Reynold's other novellas but in a way the rough structure fits the story. It is different enough from much of Reynolds' other works that it will be interesting reading for people who have read his novels, but also contains enough recurring elements that to make it a decent entry point for new readers. It might not be the very best Reynolds has produced but it is not that far off either. You could do worse than pick up this novella.

Book Details
Title: Slow Bullets
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Pages: 192
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-61696-194-7
First published: 2015

Yesterday's Kin - Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress is one of those writers who, in my opinion, does better at writing short fiction than novels. Her best length appears to be the novella, of which she has produced a number of memorable ones. The best known is probably Beggars in Spain, which formed the basis for the novel of the same name. A few years back I also read Act One, which garnered her a number of award nominations. I was quite pleased that I was able to get an advance copy of her new project Yesterday's Kin through NetGalley. Like After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall it is either a short novel or a novella. I don't have an exact wordcount but I think it falls short of most definitions of a novel. Novel or novella, it doesn't really matter.  Yesterday's Kin is a very interesting read.

Aliens have made contact with Earth and parked a spaceship in New York City. Talks between the United Nations and the aliens have been going on for a while but what they actually want remains unclear. Geneticist Marianne Jenner has paid little attention to these events, absorbed as she is in her work. With the publication of her latest article, announcing the discovery of a thirtyfirst haplogroup in humans, she is suddenly contacted by the aliens. Slowly, the reason for their visit becomes apparent, Earth is about to pass through a cloud of alien spores that could drive humanity to extinction. A race against the clock to find a treatment for the virus begins.

The Jenner family, Marianne and her three children, represent the full range of responses to the arrival of the aliens. They are seen as an invasive species, a threat to public security, a source of information on how to deal with the oncoming crisis or a new culture to be embraced completely. In short, Earth is hopelessly divided on how to deal with the situation. Kress keeps a strong focus on the impact events have on the family. It's one of the things that set her writing apart. Where many writers would be tempted to zoom out, look at the political drama in the background or include more action scenes. Kress keeps things closer to her characters, making the tale more intimate and also more focused. It's not a style suitable for sprawling novels but for the novella length it works very well.

Kress again drew inspiration from genetics in this novella. The genetic research the main character is involved in does not only shed light on the development of humanity but also has a link to the aliens. There is quite a bit of population genetics in the story. Concepts such as haplogroups, mitochondrial Eve and the population bottleneck of 70,000 years ago show up in the story. When you read this story it really hits home how much genetics have been able to contribute to our knowledge of the development of the species, supplementing branches of science such as archaeology and paleontology.

The author doesn't limit the science to genetics though. A fair bit of ecology sneaks in between the lines as well. I do think that Kress didn't quite manage to integrate the view of the aliens as an invasive species (in the ecological sense). With transport of people and goods around the globe at an all time high, accidental introductions of species that can upset an entire ecosystem is becoming a huge problem. That is on top of the trouble already caused by the species that have been purposefully introduced. A single species not involved in a particular ecosystem can alter it radically, usually leading to great losses in biodiversity. The idea that an alien species might cause something like that is plausible but we don't get to see any of that. Social disruption yes, but no ecological havoc. In fact, considering what Kress tells us of the origin of this alien race and the speed at which evolution takes place in complex organisms, it may not be all that big a risk. When Kress eventually reveals why she included that particular idea, it made sense but didn't come across as particularly convincing.

That being said, I did enjoy the science Kress put into this story an awful lot. The use of genetics in science fiction is widespread but I can't think of any other author in the field who takes her inspiration from recent scientific research in the field like Kress does. The life sciences are a very important part of her story but she consistently manages to keep her stories quite close to the everyday life of the characters. It is not the sense of wonder Kress is looking for, but the impact on everyday life. They are a combination of fascinating science and well drawn characters. Stories that are both emotionally powerful and thought provoking. In many ways Yesterday's Kin is a signature Kress novella. If you liked her other work, you can't really go wrong with this one.  I have read Kress stories where the elements of the story fall into place more convincingly but it is still a high quality read. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up on a few award shortlists next year.

Book Details
Title: Yesterday's Kin
Author: Nancy Kress
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Pages: 192
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-61686-176-3
First published: 2014

The Secret City - Carol Emshwiller

Looking for interesting novels to read for the WWend Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge I came across Carol Emshwiller's wprk. She is well into her nineties now and still writing. A lot of her output is short fiction but over a career that spans more than six decades she produced a number of novels as well. The Secret City (2007) is her most recent novel. It grew out of a short story called World of No Return, first published in Asimov's in the December 2005 issue. Emshwiller is not an author that receives a lot of attention but certainly a steady voice in science fiction. She strikes me as an author you have to at read at least something of and thus a good choice for the reading challenge. It turned out to be one of my better picks in the reading challenge.

A group of alien tourists is stranded on Earth. They are equipped with homing beacons so they expect to be rescued soon enough. Trying not to attract attention to themselves, keep away from human society as best they can but as the years go by, rescuers fail to appear and their money runs out, closer contact with humans is inevitable. A new generation grows up not knowing their home planet. The aliens prepare their children as best they can for a return, but having been born on Earth, not all of them are sure they want to go back.

The Secret City is short novel, written in a very to the point style. The prose is sparse, supplying just the bare bones of what is going on in the world around the main characters. Emshwiller lays out her story in just over 200 pages. I finished it in a single day, which is something I haven't done in quite a while. Another interesting feature of the story is that it is written is the first person and the present tense, which always takes me a few pages to get into. I thought it was a highly readable style but some readers might prefer a bit more detail.

Emshwiller follows the story of two main characters. Lorpas, the male protagonist, is the more worldly of the two. He has had extensive contact with the outside world and has integrated to the point of loosing most of his native language. He is basically a good man but not above a little stealing to make his way. Very few other ways to make a living are open to him. One of the most interesting things about him is how he is at the same time not quite human and yet able to fit in almost seamlessly. His point of view clearly shows how ignorant the aliens are of Earth and if you read between the lines, he doesn't think much of his parents' attitude.

The female protagonist Allush has a different view on the world. She grows up in the hidden city somewhere in the mountains of the western United States, much more focused on what her parents' generation has been able to salvage of their alien civilization. They have tried to minimize contact with the outside world but because of a steady drain of people leaving the city and the death of the older generation, the city is slowly emptying. While desperately trying to hold on to their idea of civilization they have regressed to a barely self sustaining hunting and gathering community. The city as their last refuge, symbol of their ignorance pride and foolishness.

Lorpas sees the city as a goal, a place where he might find others of his kind. Something he longs for after years of wandering the world alone. Allush on the other hand realizes she will have to leave it, either for the home world or human society. There is something intensely tragic about both these stories. It might have been a tragedy but somehow, as soon as Emshwiller brings the two together, the story takes another direction. For me, that was one of the most appealing aspects of the story.

The Secret City is a wonderfully understated meditation of being different, of not fitting in. The otherness of the mail characters is constantly present in the narrative and, usually between the lines, they are permanently struggling with it. It is perhaps not the most ambitious science fiction novel ever but the minimalist style and clear language appealed to me. I may have to dig up some of her short fiction. I suspect Emshwiller's writing is even more effective in the short form. This book is definitely the most pleasant surprise in the reading challenge thus far.

Book Details
Title: The Secret City
Author: Carol Emschwiller
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Pages: 209
Year: 2007
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-892391-44-9
First published: 2007

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall - Nancy Kress

Recently, I won a copy of Nancy Kress' latest novel After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall over at the Little Red Reviewer. It arrived in record time (thank you Andrea!) but unfortunately I lost it almost as quickly, when my girlfriend snapped it up to read. She has developed a real appreciation of Kress' writing, quite unusual for someone who doesn't read a lot of science fiction. Fortunately it is a quick read so I got it back in a few days and have managed to read it myself. It is an interesting novel(la?), one that can't have been easy to sell given its length, but I do have some reservations about it. I think it is not her strongest work by a long shot but certainly worth reading.

In 2035 a handful of survivors are all that remain of humanity. Rounded up in a structure called the Shell, they are protected from the radioactive wasteland that is all that remains of the earth. A race of aliens known as the Tesslies built this shelter and has provided the inhabitants with the basics necessary for survival. Despite their best efforts, prospects are not good. Too few to prevent inbreeding in the long run and crippled by radiation related genetic damage, humanity looks doomed. One piece of Tesslie technology that may change all this is a time travelling device that allows the survivors to travel to before the fall and snatch children or supplies. The Grabs, as these expeditions are called are getting closer together and more frantic. Time is clearly running out for the survivors.

In 2013, the kidnappings have not gone unnoticed. Brilliant mathematician Julie Khan is working with he police on finding the perpetrator. She believes there is a connection between the disappearances, a mathematical pattern that allows her to predict the next attempt. As she gets closer to the truth, her mathematics leads her to even more disturbing discoveries.

After she finished the novel, my girlfriend said there were a few things I should ignore to really enjoy the book and she was right. Kress does two things in this novel I don't like. It all comes down to personal preferences mind you, it doesn't necessarily make the book a poor one.

First, Kress wrote a time travel story. I generally don't like those, simply because they always lead to paradoxes and other impossible situations. It generally makes my suspension of disbelief collapse pretty quickly. I kept wondering why nobody in the shell ever thought of trying to warn people in the past for instance. Time travel stories somehow always tie themselves in knots. I must admit Kress writes a structurally beautiful story though. The switches between the sections in 2013/4 and 2035 are woven into each other in such a way that it appears to be told in a chronological fashion. A very odd experience when you think about it and it also shows how unfair I am being towards this book. If Kress had separated the characters spatially rather than in time, and then introduced a way of quickly covering this distance, it wouldn't have made think twice.

The next bit is spoilerish.