The People's Police - Norman Spinrad

Norman Spinrad made his name as part of the New Wave in the 1960s. It is the period in science fiction where things start to get interesting to me. I am not that much of a fan of Pulp or Golden Age material. It is somewhat surprising that I never actually read anything by him before. When Tor offered me a review copy I figured it was time to do something about that. The People's Police is his first published novel since 2011. Spinrad self-published the English edition of his previous novel Osama the Gun (2011) after a string of rejection notes from US publishers. The topic was deemed too controversial. Controversy is something Spinrad clearly never tried to avoid in his career. The People's Police is bound to rub some readers the wrong way as well. Then again, it wouldn't be a good satire if it didn't.

New Orleans is not doing so well. After being struck by hurricane Katrina, the city has never regained its former glory. With increasingly powerful hurricanes hitting the city every year, much of the city's surroundings have reverted back to the swamp it once was. To add to the city's misery, a new economic crisis started by the meteoric rise of the value of the dollar has hit the nation. Police officer Martin Luther Martin, brothel owner J. B. Lafitte and Voodoo Queen MaryLou Boudreau all suffer the consequences of yet another economic failure. Something needs to be done. Each in their own way, will contribute to a series of events that will upset the politics and economics of the state of Louisiana severely.

Spinrad is clearly not impressed with the political and economic state of the US at the moment, and in this novel he presents a crisis that is an extension of the one we are currently crawling out of. It boils down to an extreme rise in the value of the dollar, which is nice in the short term because products get cheaper. In the long run it depresses wages however, which is not good for people trying to pay off a mortgage, closed before the rise of the dollar. A new round of foreclosures quickly ensues. I'm a little hazy on the mechanism that causes the dollar to rise and how realistic that development is. Economics is not exactly my area of expertise.

Whatever the exact economics of the situation may be, the message that the financial and political elite has failed to learn the lessons from the 2008 crisis is loud and clear. Spinrad argues that market economics cannot work without a large and stable middle class, and that the current direction of the US economy is not going to provide that. Since it is also very obvious that the economic elite is not about to change their ways, change must come from the bottom. And there we hit on a second issue Spinrad takes aim at, the deeply rooted mistrust of career politicians and the, in my opinion, somewhat naive belief that putting people in charge from other walks of life would yield better results. Looking at this novel in that light, the election of Trump as president couldn't be more fitting.

The main characters in the story are all people just trying to get by. They have opinions on what needs to be changed, but rarely are able to think more than a few steps ahead, or beyond their immediate surroundings. They are often shamelessly selfish in their motivations as well. Their actions quickly expose some of the divisions in US society. They clash with the religious conservatives, with the anti-union sentiment that has become so prevalent in the last decades, with the close ties between big business and the political establishment, and with the abuse of the system of checks and balances to endlessly block decision-making. It is, in other words, a revolution that meets with stiff opposition.

Spinrad swings all over the political spectrum in this novel. From police union actions that would make Joseph McCarthy turn in his grave to sending in the National Guard to end the anarchism caused by a lack of police enforcement. There is more than a bit of irony in the role of the religious and conservative National Guard commander in the story. Through his religious convictions, and more than a bit of common sense, he ends up doing things that are perfectly in line with his convictions but not by any stretch of the imagination in line with conservative orthodoxy. Whether you approach the problem from the right or the left, so Spinrad seems to argue, the conclusion that the balance between capital and labour needs to be restored is inevitable.

Being set in the Big Easy the dialogues are in a kind of Southern Vernacular English. Spinrad plays with the preconceptions associated with that variety of English, as well as with various stereotypes associated with the rural population of the Mississippi delta, and preconceptions of crime, drug use and race. He constantly tempts the reader to fall into one of these preconceptions and think of the characters as backwards, uneducated and dumb, only to have that character make a move that shows them not quite as simple as the stereotype would have it. This contrast is sometimes downright hilarious but can also be very confronting. The Voodoo queen is probably the best example of that. She is 'ridden' by the spirits but do not think her a puppet.

The People's Police is a very politically charged novel. It questions, it mocks, it satirizes and it challenges. The book is quite cynical about the world of politics and business in particular. You have to be able to appreciate a strong political message in the book to like it. Spinrad does not hide his own opinions, which border on the anarchistic at times, in the novel. I suspect this goes for a lot of his other books as well, so for readers familiar with his work, that will most likely not be a surprise. Personally, I enjoyed his sharp criticism and unapologetically cynical observations. It makes me curious what Spinrad has to say on terrorism. I may have to seek out Osama the Gun some time.

Book Details
Title: The People's Police
Author: Norman Spinrad
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 284
Year: 2017
Language: English
Format: E-ARC
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8429-4
First published: 2017

High Stakes - George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass

High Stakes is the 23rd book in the shared world series Wild Cards, and the final book in what has become known as the Mean Streets Triad. The triad started with Fort Freak (2011), which combines a police procedural with comic book heroes inspired characters. This final volume is quite a different beast though. It takes us far from the streets of Joker Town in New York and pits an unlikely bunch of heroes against a malevolent foe capable of destroying the world. It is pure Wild Cards alright, but probably not the ending of this story arc people were expecting.

Detective Franny Black manages to crack the case of the disappearing Jokers. He tracks them down to a casino in the city of Talas, Kazakhstan, where Jokers are forced to fight to the death in an arena. Franny's intrusion puts a stop to that but it soon turns out the casino hides a much greater threat. The jokers do not just serve as a sick kind of entertainment. The deaths of the Jokers slakes the thirst for blood and suffering of a creature waiting to unleash its terrible power upon the world. Franny may have solved a crime and destroyed the world in one move.

The Wild Cards series swing back and forth between short story collection and traditional novel. High Stakes is what Martin calls a full mosaic. It was written by six authors: Melinda M. Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, David Anthony Durham, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, and Ian Tregillis, all of whom have contributed to the series before. Where, in the previous two novels in the triad, the authors all had clearly defined sections, this book is edited in a different way. You can still recognize the various contributions by the point of view, but they are worked into seven long sections with contributions by all the authors instead of individual chapters. The editing is decent, some minor continuity errors but nothing that really bothered me. There must have been quite a bit of rewriting involved. The copy-editor could have done another pass though. If I spot typos there's a lot of them.

I suspect that quite a lot of people will not particularly like this novel. It breaks from the police procedural and launches into full-blown Lovecraftian horror. The horrific element of the novel is, as one would expect from a comic book inspired series, very much over the top. The authors don't shy away from describing events in gory detail. I felt the copious descriptions of the nightmarish scenes in Talas padded the novel quite a bit. I suppose with six authors you need to give them some space to do their thing but this book definitely could have been shorter. If this gory kind of monster horror is your thing, then you will want to read this book. It is such a break with the two books that have gone before, and the reader has to have read Lowball (2014) to make sense of this one, that for many readers it will be a disappointment.

Here and there, a fine bit of characterization can be found in the novel. When the horror does not rely on monsters, it is actually truly horrific. The influence of the creature the Aces are fighting makes the darkest thoughts, hidden in the deepest recesses of their mind, surface. The shift between the face they normally show the world and the murderous monsters they can turn into is often rapid and very disturbing. Especially Molly, who swings between the lonely and selfish kleptomaniac she has shown herself to be and the murderous fury she can turn into several times in the book, is a good example of this. A lifetime of therapy probably won't be enough to deal with that kind of trauma.

While the novel is well padded and over the top, the authors do manage to keep it compulsively readable. The reader will want to know how they manage to defeat the monster lurking under Talas. To do that, the authors reach back to a character that has not appeared in the Triad before. For readers who have not read the other novels in the series, it may feel like a deus ex machina ending. I guess one of the advantages of having so much material to draw on, is always being able to drag in an Ace with useful powers.

High Stakes left me with pretty much the same feeling as Suicide Kings (2009), the final novel in the Committee Triad. The triad starts out interesting but then doesn't live up to the promise. This book was very readable, fun even at some level, but it was not a good book. High Stakes manages to make the triad feel unbalanced by so completely changing the nature of the story. It makes the book feel like a story attached to the previous two books at a later time rather than a continuous narrative. I guess there is a trade off between leaving the authors space to be creative and agreeing in advance on a story arc. Martin has sold three more Wild Cards books to Tor. I hope they manage handle to this obvious limitation of their modus operandi better in those novels.

Book Details
Title: High Stakes
Editor: George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 555
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3562-3
First published: 2016

Ghost Talkers - Mary Robinette Kowal

In the Netherlands it is not very noticeable, but our neighbours are in the middle of a string of centenaries of major events in the First World War. The period was no picnic in our neck of the woods, but the Netherlands did manage to stay neutral through the four years of bloodshed taking place elsewhere in Europe. As a result, the conflict that enveloped the world some two decades later receives much more attention. Personally, I have always had more of an interest in the Great War. It was the end of nineteenth century Europe and the beginning of a great many things that still shape the world today. Given the enormous changes the conflict brought about, it is not surprising a number of works of speculative fiction are appearing that deal with the period. Ghost Talkers is one of those books.

The year is 1916 and the Battle of the Somme is in full swing. In an effort to move the offensive forward, no means are left untried. Ginger Stuyvesant is an American heiress engaged to the British captain Benjamin Harford. She is a medium working with the Spirit Corps. Her corps has found a way to compel the souls of dead soldiers to report in before they move on to the great beyond and relay the circumstance of their deaths. This way, even in death, they can relay essential tactical information. The existence of this corps is a closely guarded secret. When Ginger uncovers evidence of a traitor in the British ranks, she soon finds herself embroiled in a game of espionage in which she is the main target.

The speculative element of the novel takes the upper hand in the story. It is very much a fantasy novel and only then a historical one. There is still quite a bit of history in it though. The title may surprise some readers, as it appears to be an allusion to a group of soldiers better known for their role in the Second World War. On a limited scale the US army did employ native American code talkers in the final stages of the war. The US had not entered the war at the time of the battle of the Somme however, and using codes to securely relay messages takes different forms in the book. Kowal does not focus on the battle that is the background of the story. Instead she depicts life right behind the lines with an emphasis on the role of women in the war effort.

There are lots of little details in the story that show the author has researched the period in detail. The presence of a soldier named Tolkien on the battlefield (his experiences at the Somme would work his way into The Lord of the Rings), the literature discussed, the social mores and how the war influences them, the support structure for the soldiers and the English used in the dialogue. Whether or not she succeeds in that last aspect, I will leave to readers better qualified than me. It didn't strike me as out of place though. If you are looking for details on the actual fighting this book is probably not the one you are looking for, but as a snapshot of that particular moment in history it works nicely.

The romance in the novel did not really convince though. A stolen kiss here, a double entendre there, it is all very coy and proper and in line with what one would expect of two well-bred, early twentieth century, young people courting. It is almost cliché and at odds with the situation they are in however. Both of them are in constant mortal danger. War tends to loosen social restrictions, it encourages people to seize the moment while they still can. Ginger and Benjamin do not seem to entertain thoughts on their own mortality even in the face of the atrocious losses the British army suffered in the opening stages of the battle of the Somme. You'd think they would at the very least be a bit less resigned to waiting for their marriage.

The speculative element is provided by Kowal's version of spiritualism. She admits to adapting existing religious beliefs and parapsychology to the needs of the story. It is a set of beliefs that has always attracted a lot of charlatans, frauds and con-artists. That made it a bit hard to fully suspend my disbelief while reading this novel. It has to be said that Kowal uses this reputation well though. By discrediting the practice in public, the British try to avoid raising suspicion to what is going on.

Ginger's talent is a bit of a problem for the military commanders. She is a woman and not even a British one at that. As much as her superior would like to ignore her, he cannot without paying the price. This bit of rampant sexism can't be held in check permanently of course. Ginger has to push harder than any of the men serving under the commander to get him to listen. A coalition of people usually ignored by the powers that be help her get her point across.

What Kowal does very well with the speculative element of the story, is use it to explore love and loss. For a medium, death is not the end. It creates possibilities that a normal person would not have. It allows you to hold on to a loved one in this world, or conversely, to follow into the beyond. The temptation to be selfish or just give up can be overwhelming at times. Ginger goes through all that and more in what is a very harrowing couple of days for her. What makes this novel a good one, whatever you may think of the premise, is how Kowal brings her characters to life. Once the story gets going, their affection, traumas, and triumphs leap from the page. It is a very clever book in a way too. Although they are impossible to miss, Kowal never lets her history, supernatural influences, or feminist elements dominate the story.

All things considered, Ghost Talkers is a book that would not have worked for me in the hands of a lesser writer. Kowal manages to pull it off though. It's a novel that could have gone of the track in half a dozen ways but the author manages to bring it to a convincing close. It strikes a good balance between the various themes and the demands of the story. It's a pretty fast paced story and not a particularly long novel but it has quite a lot lurking beneath the surface. I'm not sure if it will make mine, but I do know this book will end up on a few year's best lists and maybe even pick up an award nomination or two. It's probably not everybody's cup of tea but clearly one of the more notable releases of 2016.

Book Details
Title: Ghost Talkers
Author: Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 304
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7825-5
First published: 2016

Death's End - Cixin Liu

Death's End is the concluding volume of a science fiction trilogy that started with The Three-Body Problem. These novels have been translated from Chinese, and that alone makes them stand out. Translations into English are rare in science fiction. Translations that win awards - The Three-Body Problem won a Hugo Award - are even rarer. Slowly, more attention for science fiction from outside the anglophone sphere is emerging and this series certainly played a part in that. Death's End takes Liu's vision to extremes. It is a book with a scope grander than we have seen in the previous volumes and as such, a fitting conclusion to the series.

The threat from the Trisolarans has, at least for the moment, been neutralized. By finding a way to expose the position of their home world to the galaxy, Earth now has a powerful weapon of deterrence. It is, in a sense, back to the cold war. The Wallfacer project was not the only one humanity started to deal with the crisis however. In this age of deterrence, a young Chinese aerospace engineer wakes up after many decades of hibernation. Her knowledge of one of these programs upsets the carefully maintained balance between the two species. Soon, Earth plunges into another crisis. This one even more lethal than anything they have encountered before.

The translation is once again in the hands of Ken Liu. As far as I can tell he did a splendid job. Liu translated the first novel, before handing over the reigns to Joel Martinsen for the second book. They obviously compared notes because the English version appears seamless to me. Although many of the characters are Chinese, the story takes place on a global scale or even beyond. Liu only needs eleven footnotes in a 600 page book, to explain a few phrases where the context might escape the western reader.

The main character is the Chinese engineer Cheng Xin. She is born in the twenty-first century and lives pretty much through the entire period of the Trisolaran crisis. Cheng takes a decidedly different approach to dealing with the crisis than Luo Ji, the main character in The Dark Forest. Where he sets humanity on a ruthless path of mutually assured destruction, Cheng doesn't care for the responsibility to condemn whole species to death and decide over the fate of whole solar systems. Her compassion proves to be costly in a universe where everybody is out to destroy everybody else.

I must say the parallel Liu draws between society and his main characters annoyed me a bit in this novel. Society swings from 'masculine' values to 'feminine values' and back again. From bellicose and ruthless, to compassionate and passive, and back again. These qualifications will have feminists all over the world up in arms. The idea that humanity needs an utterly ruthless man to survive the crisis and that by not following the examples of Luo and Wade (another powerful figure in the story, and a man devoid of any sense of morality), our species condemns itself to extinction. Whether or not it is desirable to follow a tyrant in wartime is debatable but surely this theme could have been handled without making it into a gender issue.

In the previous novel, the Trisolarans imposed limits on human technological development. After the start of what Liu calls the deterrence age, these limits disappear and humanity once again progresses in great strides. Liu's cosmology becomes ever more complex. His fondness for playing with dimensions and perspectives is given free reign in the book, leading to a number of memorable scenes. Once again, some parts of the novel reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke (Rendezvous with Rama and the Fountains of Paradise in particular) but there is also a bit of Poul Anderson in the book. Specifically his novel Tau Zero.

Although we follow Cheng for most of the novel, Liu inserts sweeping passages where he explains global developments. They are none too subtle for the most part. Humanity in Liu's vision moves as a whole. There is little room in the narrative for dissent or debate. When presented with irrefutable evidence (something not many people in the west seem to believe in these days), the Earth as a whole decides to follow the inevitable path. Liu breaks the show-don't-tell rule on a massive scale in this novel. If that bothers you as are a reader, this novel is clearly not for you. Personally it didn't bother me beyond the fact that humanity seems to behave a bit more rational than I would expect them to do.

Liu takes the story to the end of the universe and beyond. It is a dark journey, one that offers little hope for any of the creatures inhabiting it. There is just a glimmer at the very end though. While this universe may be doomed, from its ashes, a new one may arise. Since it is a worst case scenario, the salvation of the universe relies on many parties doing something completely selfish. Given all that has gone before, it is no more than the barest hint of light in the dark forest universe.

Liu's trilogy evolves into space opera on the largest possible canvas. It is a trilogy that will awe the reader with grand vistas of the universe. While not flawless, the series has already shown that it is more than capable of finding a global audience. This novel manages to raise the stakes to dizzying heights, and forms a worthy conclusion of the series. I suspect it will turn out to be a favourite for many readers. If I had to pick a favourite it would probably be the first book. It shows us a bit more of Chinese society and that adds to the story in my opinion. For the pure science fiction fan, Death's End is probably more appealing. I do hope that the success of this series has opened the door a bit further for other translations. If anything, these novels show that there is a wealth of material to discover beyond what is written in English.

Book Details
Title: Death's End
Author: Cixin Liu
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 604
Year: 2016
Language: English
Translation: Ken Liu
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-765-7710-4
First published: 2010

Necessity - Jo Walton

Time travel, robots, Olympian gods and Plato's Republic, how do you manage to stuff those elements into one coherent story. In Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy she  attempts just that. The first two novels, The Just City and The Philosopher Kings, both published in 2015, turned out to be some of the most unusual works of speculative fiction I've read in ages. Necessity, the third book, took a bit longer to write and contains the conclusion of a story that takes us from Iron Age Greece to a far future exoplanet. In many ways, it is just as fascinating as the previous two volumes but you also get the feeling Walton nearly tripped over the implications of time travel in this book. Even the gods have trouble keeping things straight it would seem.

Forty years ago the cities were moved from Iron Age Greece to a planet circling a distant sun. All of the masters have died of old age by now and the children are very old men and women. When the inevitable happens and Apollo's mortal body gives out, he returns to his divine self only to find his sister Athena missing. He soon finds out that her curiosity has driven her to explore the nature of the universe beyond the bounds of time, a thing expressly forbidden by their father Zeus. A desperate search for Athena is about to begin. On the mortal plane another potentially dangerous development is taking place. A space ship has entered orbit around the planet and it is carrying humans. The Just Cities are about to rejoin the wider human society.

Since mortals can't really influence the labours of the gods that much, you'd think they would be more concerned with the end of their isolation. Most of the book deals with Athena's antics and theie consequences however. There is quite a bit of Ancient Greek cosmology and the nature of the gods. Subjects the ancient Greeks seem to have disagreed on quite a bit themselves. The gods exist out of time but can visit it if they want to. They are not bound to any period in history but can visit each moment only once. It is quite possible that a god meets a mortal who have already met them before in their experience but the god in question still has to visit that particular point in time. When this happens, the gods feel the pull of necessity. An urge to make the moment in time they just visited come about by performing a task earlier in time. Encounters like these wreak havoc on the timeline in the story and only with great difficulty has Walton managed to make something comprehensible out of it. It is another fine example of why time travel is not one of my favourite tropes. It just keeps tying itself in knots.

The gods get to have their fun in this novel but first contact seems to be a very muted affair. After a lifetime of trying to make Plato's republic a reality, the community on the planet has drifted quite far from the human main stream. Language is the first obstacle but not as it happens an insurmountable one. Although you can feel the tension among the characters in the book, they are prepared for this eventuality and it is dealt with, with a minimum lack of fuss. I would almost say that a stoic couldn't have done it better.The conclusion of the series feels like a bit of an anti-climax but that may have more to do with me not liking the other main subject of the novel that much.

The one main character that was with us for all three novels, Apollo, is also not quite as interesting as in the previous two novels. In those books Walton uses him to explore issues like consent and sexism, but also loss and sacrifice. In this novel he is done learning and mostly broods over how his new-found knowledge fits into his wider view of the universe. By regaining godhood he has lost some of his humanity, making him a more bland character than he was in previous novels.

All of that doesn't sound very positive, but there are more than a few things to enjoy in the book too. Walton again included numerous references to history and art in the novel. She discusses the importance of art partly through the point of view of the robot Crocus, who has managed to become quite a philosopher and artist in the years since we've last encountered him. Walton deftly avoids making him want to be human. Crocus is striving for excellence, not humanity and is enough of a thinker not to confuse the two. In fact, robots - not distracted by the sexuality Plato so deeply misunderstood - may be much more suitable to achieve the Platonic ideal than humans are.

On the whole, I don't think Walton finishes the trilogy as strong as she starts it. It is not a book that adds that much to her vision of Plato's republic. I enjoyed reading it quite a bit but not as much as the previous two volumes. As a whole, the trilogy is a work to remember though. Walton takes on complex subjects and ideas in these books and yet manages to keep them very accessible. I would not be surprised to see a few people pick up some of Plato's works (note that Walton does not recommend starting with The Republic). Walton pushes herself in these books but she also pushes speculative fiction as a whole in a new direction. There are not many authors that can claim to have done that. Maybe she falters slightly on the home stretch but it is still a noteworthy work of fiction. I recommend you read it.

Book Details
Title: Necessity
Author: Jo Walton
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 331
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7902-3
First published: 2016

Only the Stones Survive - Morgan Llywelyn

Only the Stones Survive is the latest  historical fantasy by Irish-American author Morgan Llywelyn. I received a review copy from the people at Tor. This book is the first I have read by Llywelyn. She's had a long backlist of historical, mythological and fantastical novels, most dealing on some level with Celtic Ireland. This novel is no exception. It is a pretty straightforward retelling of a set myths dealing with the arrival of the Gaels in Ireland. Unless I am very much mistaken, it is mostly inspired by The Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabála Érenn in Irish), which collects a number of pseudo-historical poems and stories about the early history of Ireland. The first written records of these stories date from the eleventh century but one can safely assume the tales themselves are older. A lot of what you will find in this book has in some shape or form been included in numerous fantasy novels as well as historical works. It makes Llywelyn's rendition instantly recognizable for a lot of readers.

Driven by hardship in their native Galicia, the sons of Milesios take their tribe to sea in search of a new homeland. They invade Ireland and meet the Tuatha Dé Danann, themselves invaders of an earlier age. The Tuatha Dé Danann are long-lived and careful to live in harmony with the island. Their magic is strong but they are reluctant to use it. They see the Gael as loud and barbaric but their magic and bronze arms are no match for the cold iron of the Gaels. A new era in the history of the island is dawning.

The story is told in two main strands. The first is narrated in the first person by Joss, a young boy of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He is on the verge of adulthood when the Gael arrive and makes the transition in a time of war and hardship. While he watches his people being slaughtered, he is looking for a way to save a remnant of what they were. The second strand is a multiple point of view third person narrative. We see this part of the story through the eyes of the invaders. Besides being terrified of the magic of the island, the invaders are also being torn by internal conflicts. Theirs is a race of warriors, and they turn on themselves just as easily as on the natives.

The author draws a sharp contrast between the two parties. One a people living in such close harmony with the island, that their disappearance causes environmental changes. The other a people looking to exploit its resources to gain wealth. It's interesting to consider that the Celtic Druidic culture that would rise on the island is usually thought to be tied to the land in ways similar to what Llywelyn uses for the Tuatha Dé Danann in this novel. It must be said that she gives a hint of how this comes to be in the final chapters of the novel though.

Like its source material, most of the novel is mythical, a number of existing locations are used. Most of them are located in the Boyne valley. Llywelyn mentions the origins of the hill of Tara as the seat of the Irish High Kings. The megalithic monuments of  Newgrange, Dowth and Knowth, already ancient by the time the Tuatha Dé Danann arrive on the island, play an important part in the story. These locations are quite real and described in vivid detail. I also suspect the cave system mentioned in the book is an existing one but I haven't been able to identify it. Suffice to say Llywelyn knows a thing or two about the island and uses it to ground the story in the real world.

The story itself will not surprise many readers. Once I became aware of the mythological sources of the novel I more or less approached the novel as I would an Arthurian tale. The conclusion is inevitable, it's how you get there that counts. Llywelyn more or less forces the reader to take this approach to the novel by opening with a scene of the battle in which the Tuatha Dé Danann are thoroughly destroyed. It is clear from the outset, even for the reader not familiar with the source material, that this book is going to be a tragedy.

I must admit I didn't think Only the Stones Survive was the most inspired bit of writing I've ever come across. Llywelyn dutifully follows the myths and delivers a tragic tale of the rise of one culture and the fading away of another. The characters never evolved beyond archetypes though. For this book to be a truly enjoyable read for me, the author should have succeeded in making me forget the various roles the characters play in this tragedy and make me care for them as individuals rather than a representation of their respective peoples. In that aspect the novel fails. In a few places it is a dry read.

I enjoyed reading Only the Stones Survive at some level. Llywelyn delivers a clear story of a bit of pseudo-history that is the foundation of a lot of modern fantasy. She also manages to firmly anchor it in the real world, with the many references to existing locations. That being said, the author's firm grasp of the source material doesn't really make up for the lack of characterization. With the shape of the story largely known and the outcome inevitable, the novel would have been a lot better if Llywelyn had managed to evolve her characters beyond the archetype. As it is, the novel is interesting for fans of the author and people with an interest in Celtic mythology. It is not the book Llywelyn will be remembered for though.

Book Details
Title: Only the Stones Survive
Author: Morgan Llywelyn
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 232
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-4668-3654-9
First published: 2016

Dark Orbit - Carolyn Ives Gilman

Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman is a novel set in her Twenty Worlds setting. There are several shorter pieces and one other novel in this setting. Of these I have only read the novella The Ice Owl (2011), which earned Gilman a Nebula and Hugo Award nomination a few years back. That novella was an interesting read, although not the best that year had to offer. I always meant to follow up on it so when Dark Orbit was released I decided it was a book I had to read. It was published in July so I'm still a bit on the late side. Like the novella, this novel turned out to be a very interesting read. I would not be surprised if Gilman reels in a few more award nominations for this one.

Sara Callicot is a researcher sent on a mission to one of the strangest planets science has ever encountered. The crystalline world does not show any signs associated with an advanced culture on the surface but physically it offers plenty of material for research. Sara is there with a double agenda. She has been attached to the team to keep an eye on the scientists rather than do research herself. She has barely arrived at the ship when the decapitated body of one of the security guards is found. It's the beginning of a string of events that will set the crew against each other. When the strangeness of the planet becomes ever more apparent and more threatening, the struggle between the various factions in the crew heat up. The very survival of the expedition soon becomes doubtful.

In a way this novel reminded me of a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. In Direction of the Road (1973) she shows us the world from the perspective of an ancient oak. Where we perceive it to be stationary, the oak has decidedly different views on the matter. It forces the reader to wrap their mind around a truly alien perspective and think about the meaning of relativity. That is in effect what Gilman does in this novel. Events on the planet the expedition is exploring unfolds in more than four dimensions and that has very interesting consequences for the story.

Part of the plot revolves around a number of well known observations involving quantum mechanics and relativity. The story contains a device that makes it possible to communicate in real time with people many light years away by making use of entangled pairs of quantum systems. My understanding of such theories is not very deep but as I understand it, it seems unlikely that information can actually be transferred this way. A second element in the plot rooted in physics is the effect that observation influences the outcome, or in quantum terms that a particle can in effect be in two states until an observation causes a probability wave collapse and forces the particle to be in one state or the other. This effect is the subject of the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. There are references to other theories as well. String theory and references to branes also pop up at one point for instance.

Gilman applies many of these theories on the macro level, allowing people to travel between dimensions, or witness events many light years way. There are many references to physics in the book but most of the characters don't view these occurrences in a strictly rational way. For many, a more spiritual explanation makes more sense, or at least enables them to wrap their mind around the strange things they are seeing. Gilman constantly challenges perceptions, and whether or not we can trust our own senses. She consistently does so for all the viewpoints presented in the novel, leaving the reader to sort it all into their own framework.

Perception and views on the universe are of course linked to the way our brain works. The way it is wired in the absence of light for instance is one of the many examples of how perspectives differ from one person to another. A village designed by people used to relying on hearing and feel to get around looks radically different to one designed for people relying primarily on sight.  Both make sense to the people involved in developing that particular structure but when seen through the others' eyes it makes little sense. Our brain selects, edits and distorts the bombardment of sensory information it receives. Gilman gives a number of very interesting examples of how this works and how it shapes our view on our surrounding.

At just over 300 pages, Dark Orbit is a relatively short novel. Structurally it is probably closer to a novella than a novel. It is efficient to the point where I wouldn't actually have minded a bit more detail on the universe the story is set in. There are plenty of references to the Twenty Planets but after reading this novel the reader only has a very sketchy idea of how this future history came to be. Gilman is equally brief with the back story of her characters. In a way this is fitting as the scientists that are part of the mission have travelled fifty-eight light years, leaving all they knew behind and knowing it will all be ancient history by the time they come back. Information can be transmitted fast but people cannot. I guess there is no point in dwelling on the past for these people. The novel is very focussed on the now. I suspect it will leave more than a few readers with the feeling that they would have liked it to be a little longer.

The year 2015 is a good one for science fiction. Despite the fact that a handful of angry fans almost succeed in wrecking the genre's best known award, the number of books that challenge the genre's boundaries, that push the reader to think, and that allow them to experience cultures, frameworks of thought and lifestyles unfamiliar to them has never been greater. Gilman's novel does not take this development to extremes, one could say this approach to science fiction is fairly traditional. What it does do is make the reader think about where their own viewpoints fit in a whole larger than we could possibly perceive. In a world where debates become increasingly polarized and many parties seem to feel theirs is an absolute truth, that is a very necessary thing indeed.

Book Details
Title: Dark Orbit
Author: Carolyn Ives Gilman
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 303
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3629-3
First published: 2015

Luna: New Moon - Ian McDonald

In the past few years Ian McDonald has produced three young adult novels that make up the Everness series. They're the kind of book that I wish had been around when I was in my early teens. It was quite a drastic change in direction for McDonald. His most recent adult novels are all densely plotted, beautifully written works set in near future developing economies. In his new adult novel he once again takes us in a different direction: the Moon. Luna: New Moon is the first in a duology on the colonization and industrialization of the Moon. It's a book fans of McDonald will love but also one that might frustrate readers because of the abrupt ending.

The Moon has a thousand ways to kill you but that hasn't stopped humanity from colonizing the place. Early in the 22nd century, our satellite is covered with cities, infrastructure and industrial complexes. The Moon is in effect run by five families know as the five dragons. The youngest of these, the Costas, make their money mining the helium-3 on which the earth depends to run its fusion power plants. The head of the family and founder of the company Adriana Costa is nearing her eightieth birthday and feels her time is almost up. It will be up to her children to protect family interests and keep the other four dragons at bay. The Mckenzies in particular, seem be a threat.

Luna: New Moon is a book of sharp contrasts. Society as described by McDonald is a libertarian's wet dream. There is no such thing as criminal or civil law for instance. There are only contracts and terms. Anything can be agreed upon and any breach of contract can be compensated. It creates a society with an unprecedented freedom. Sexually, pretty much everything is acceptable. Marriages are contracts like any other and can be negotiated in just about any imaginable composition. Designer drugs are freely available and just about anything else can be had for a price. It is the ultimate free market, a society with a thorough aversion to laws and limitations. It is almost as if McDoanld wanted to take a step beyond Robert A. Heinlein's classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Limited the people are though. The Moon is a harsh environment, hostile to terrestrial life in the extreme. Everybody has to purchase the four basics of life on the Moon: air, water, space and data. No money inevitably means death and with the constant consumption of these four things, the counter relentlessly moves to zero. Escape to Earth is only an option for the recently arrived. Muscles atrophy in the minimal gravity and bone mass decreases. Soon there is no way back. There is money to be made on the Moon but the personal price one pays for it is high. McDonald is constantly showing the readers the contrast between the anything goes society and the environment that demands constant attention to safety and rigorous discipline in maintaining the infrastructure to support life. Anything goes but mistakes are fatal. The most liberated society in human history is in effect a prison.

McDonald takes his interest in non-western cultures with him to this book. Of the five dragons only the Australian Mackenzies are from an English-speaking nation. Their rivals originate in Brazil, Russia, China and Ghana, making the Moon a very multicultural place. One of the ways in which the author expresses this is the use of language. His writing has always had a poetic feel to it and in this novel he enriches his English with words and phrases from Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, Yoruba, Akan and Chinese. He uses a Hawaiian system for a calendar and corporate titles are borrowed from Korean. It helps define the Moon as a place rooted in cultures from all over the world. Not everybody will appreciate the frequency with which McDonald reaches for words from other languages than English but for me it did add to the experience. At times the novel feels like McDonald is already on the path of creating a Lunar creole language.

Although McDonald is mainly interested in the struggle between the five dragons, there is a fair bit of hard science in this novel. McDonald has clearly done his research on the consequences of being exposed to vacuum or sunlight unfiltered by an ozone layer or magnetic field. Throughout the novel details on the technology that keeps people alive are worked in and the author doesn't fail to point out the consequences should this machinery break down. Transport systems and mining operations are also shown in the novel and to a lesser extent, food production and recycling systems. The Moon cannot afford to waste useful raw materials when importing them from Earth is prohibitively expensive. There's enough technical detail to make Lunar society well fleshed out but without overwhelming the story.

It is clear that Luna: New Moon is only half a story and that is probably the book's greatest weakness. McDonald needs some time to introduce his large cast and make the reader familiar with his creation. Once he has done that, the story picks up speed dramatically and moves towards a violent climax that at the same time resolves the story arc in this novel but also leaves the reader hanging to an extent. It is probably unfair to comment on it without having read the second volume but the way the first book unfolded made me wonder if it wouldn't have been better to have made it one (admittedly rather long) novel instead.

I have pretty much enjoyed everything I have read by McDonald and this novel is no exception. His exuberant writing style from his earlier novels has been tempered a bit, making his more recent books a bit more accessible. Luna: New Moon is a book that walks the fine line between exuberance and discipline both in the plot and linguistically. It is a book of sharp contrasts. Life and death are so close together that there is almost nothing between them. The moon can kill you in seconds and this razor sharp division between perishing and surviving creates a huge amount of tension in the novel. Once you are past the introductions the novel will have hooked you. McDonald shaped my vision of the moon in the way reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy did for the red planet. I don't think I can look up at it and see it quite the same way ever again.

Book Details
Title: Luna: New Moon
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 398
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7551-3
First published: 2015

The Philosopher Kings - Jo Walton

In January Tor released The Just City by Jo Walton. It is one of the most difficult books to categorize I've ever come across. Who would think to combine time travel and robots with Plato's philosophy and Greek mythology and hope to end up with a decent story? Walton pulled it off though. The Just City is one of the most interesting books I've read this year. It is also the first in a trilogy. The Philosopher Kings is the second. It appeared in June, less than half a year after the first volume. The third book, Necessity, is scheduled for June 2016. I will be keeping an eye out for that one. The Philosopher Kings is just as strong as the first volume and takes the story in interesting new directions.

Twenty years have passed since the Last Debate and Athene's abandonment of the Just City. The population has split up in five factions, founding four new cities, each with their own views on Plato's utopia. One group even decides to leave the island completely. The five city-states have various disagreements, most notably about the distribution of art taken from various times and places in history. Most of it remains in the original city but other cities constantly raid them to get their hands on some of it. In one of these raids Simmea, one of the main characters of The Just City, is killed. She leaves behind a grieving lover, a daughter and several sons, all struggling in their own way with their grief and the impossible position the city finds itself in.

Of all the characters in the first book, Simmea probably gets closest to Plato's ideal of the Philosopher King. Her life is dedicated to striving for excellence and even in death she has things to teach her loved ones. Her lover Phyteas is Apollo reincarnated in a mortal body. By killing himself he could have regained his powers, after which healing her would have been easy. She stops him from doing so however, leaving him behind to deal with grief and the inevitability of losing loved ones. It replaces his quest to understand consent in the first novel if you will. Simmea's death is a very powerful scene even if Walton writes it in a very understated way. It's an event that echoes through the entire book, relentlessly driving the characters to correct the issue that caused her death in the first place.

Like the previous volume, Walton offers us three points of view. Apollo and Maia, both of whom we met in the first novel, and Arete, daughter of Apollo and Simmea, who takes over from her mother. Through their eyes we see how the cities risk  sliding further and further away from Plato's ideal. It takes a trip off the island to see where it could lead though. On the various islands in the Aegean, the main characters get to see how easy it is to slide down the ladder of Plato's five regimes and what the consequences would be. Arete's point of view is especially clear on this. Used as she is to a city where striving for excellence drives everyday life, she is very sensitive to matters that will lead away from this ideal.

Walton uses the trip around the Aegean to add some more history to the novel as well. We know that the Just City was founded some time before the Thera volcanic eruption, at the tail end of the Minoan era in Greek history. What Walton doesn't tell us is when exactly this is. Possibly because the actual date of the Thera eruption is still uncertain. The characters speculate they were taken to a time shortly before the Trojan War. The novel mentions Laomedon as king of Troy. In Greek mythology he was the father of Priam who would be king during the war. The timeline strikes me as a bit strange. The most widely accepted dates for the historical events that may be the inspiration for Homer's Iliad are several centuries after the Thera eruption. It makes for a good story though. The characters are constantly wondering if some mythological figure might not be alive and walking one of the islands they are about to visit.

The trip, starting with the question of whether or not to make it in the first place, is subject to much debate. Without the guidance of Athene, who has not been seen in the city since the Last Debate, it is unclear if and how their trip will affect history. Athene's reason for placing the city on Thera is that the evidence would at some point be wiped out by the volcano. Why would the philosophers accept that they or their children will fall victim to this disaster in the name of an experiment of the gods? One Athene childishly abandoned after losing a debate, leaving her guinea pigs to their fate. The answer to that question is the climax of the novel and, I suppose, the foundation for the next one.

Both on their trip and at home the characters are confronted by the influence of Christianity. In the previous novel it was kept out as much as possible but both on their trip to other islands and at home, this religion is making inroads. It's a strange experience to see Christian theology show up more than a millennium before the birth of Jesus. On Thera, the work of Thomas Aquinas drives this development. I have the feeling that quite a bit of what Walton wanted to say with this part of the story went right over my head. This is probably a result of my minimal religious education and lack of interest in such matters. Other readers may do better with this part of the story.

Compared to the first novel  I guess The Philosopher Kings has a bit more plot and a bit less debate. That doesn't make it any less enjoyable though. The mixture of time travel and Greek mythology again works very well. Despite taking on some very difficult ideas the book is not a hard read. Its greatest strength is probably that Walton manages to make philosophy very accessible in this book. It doesn't end on such a dramatic cliffhanger as the previous novel but it is quite clear that the story is not quite finished. It will be very interesting to see what our Philosopher Kings can achieve in the final instalment.

Book Details
Title: The Philosopher Kings
Author: Jo Walton
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 348
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3267-7
First published: 2015

The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu

Last year the first part of this trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, was published by Tor. American publishers see translated works as a risk because of the cost of translations so works like this are unfortunately something of a rarity still. Tor cleverly made use of the reputation of the translator of the first volume, Chinese-American author Ken Liu, to draw attention to it and that worked very well indeed. It won the Hugo Award this summer and has certainly been one of the most discussed novels in science fiction this year.The Hugo vote this year is highly controversial because of the Puppies' attempt to manipulate the shortlist. In fact, it was only added to the shortlist because one of the other candidates withdrew. Personally I feel that in a year with normal voting practices it would have had a shot at the award as well. It is definitely Chinese but also firmly rooted in western science fiction, making it very accessible to western readers. While I doubt that The Dark Forest can repeat its predecessor's feat, I do think it is a worthy sequel. If you liked the The Three-Body Problem, you will want to read this book.

The Trisolarans are coming and their mission is to exterminate humanity. The human race has four centuries to prepare but with the help of the sophons, sub-atomic particles, they can listen in on any kind of human communication. Humanity is completely exposed to the Trisolarans except for one place: the privacy of the human mind. To exploit this one advantage, the Wallfacer project is started. Four people overseen by a UN committee  are granted the freedom to work on a plan to defeat the Trisolarans without having to outline it to anyone. They are granted access to enormous resources and are expected to defeat the enemy through deceit and misdirection. A dangerous and desperate plan but it seems like the only chance at survival.

The translation of this second volume is in the hands of Joel Martinsen of whom, other than what it says on the back flap, I know absolutely nothing. A quick search doesn't turn up any other translations by his hand. He follows Ken Liu's lead closely though. There is no noticeable difference in tone of voice and Martinsen is equally reluctant to add footnotes, only doing so in cases where the English-language reader is very unlikely to understand a reference to Chinese history or literature. The switch in translator will not bother the reader. I understand Liu is translating the final novel in the trilogy so continuity in the translation should not be a problem.

The novel covers about two centuries. Liu introduces a new calendar in the novel, counting the years from the start of the crisis. In a way, a lot of things stay the same during this long timespan. The Trisolarans use the sophons to limit humanity's progress in physics, essentially allowing only improvements in already existing technology. Quantum computers for instance, cannot be developed so after a certain point there is no increase in the computing power of processors any more. The technological explosion, as Liu calls it, stalls. It leaves the author free to speculate on what such a threat will do to human society and economy.

In his Big Idea piece on John Scalzi's blog Liu said he was writing a worst case scenario. No benevolent aliens or a prospect of a harmonious federation of planets of the people in this story. One of the major themes Liu examines is what the prospect of near certain extinction would do to the human psyche. It shows up in several forms but despair seems to take over every time. Liu describes the severe economic effects of creating a war economy when there isn't an enemy to fight yet. Something that will eventually lead to a collapse some time in the twenty-first century followed by a renaissance some decades later. Personally I'm wondering if something that is four centuries in the future will affect the human psyche to that degree -  we can't even be made to pay attention to a number of environmental problems that most of us most definitely will live to see after all -  but it is an interesting scenario.

Like the previous novel the author, and many of his characters, think about large groups of people. He pays attention to the thoughts and feelings of the main characters to illustrate a larger point. In themselves they are not all that interesting. Something that is probably more of an issue than in the previous book. I thought Ye Wenjie was a more interesting character than Luo Ji, the central character in this book. Luo keeps his cards close to his chest, which I suppose makes sense for a Wallfacer, but it doesn't do much for our insight into his motivations.

The Dark Forest contains a number of massive scenes in space. For the hard science fiction fan this is probably the highlight of the novel. Not all readers will like them but, as he has shown in The Three-Body Problem,  Liu is good at writing such scenes. In this novel he is absolutely ruthless in them. He so thoroughly quashes humanity's previously held beliefs  that it has made me wonder what he can come up with for the third installment of the trilogy.

Liu's story is again firmly grounded in western science fiction. He formulates an answer to the Fermi paradox for instance, and refers to some of the genre's great works (Foundation, A Clockwork Orange) and he doesn't hide his admiration of Arthur C. Clarke. As we move into the future and Liu is able to use less of China's actual history and as the story takes on more of a global perspective, it becomes even more accessible for the western reader. The Dark Forest delivers everything that The Three-Body Problem does and a bit more. If I had to choose my favourite it would still be the first book because of the historical background used in much of that story but I suspect many readers will find the second book a step up. It is a very dark story though, it will be interesting to see if the final volume, Death's End, will show us a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. It is scheduled for April next year. I for one can't wait to get my hands on it.

Book Details
Title: The Dark Forest
Author: Cixin Liu
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 512
Year: 2015
Language: English
Translation: Joel Martinsen
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
First published: 2008

Karen Memory - Elizabeth Bear

Some books spend years and years on the same bookshelf without being touched, others have adventures. My copy of Greg Egan's Teranesia for instance, was printed in the US, shipped to Australia where a friend bought it as a gift for me. It then travelled to Ireland, the UK, Italy, the Czech Republic and Germany before ending up in my bookcase. I also own a copy of Frank Herbert's Destination: Void that once belonged to a highschool library in Canada and had at least two other owners before it ended up in a second hand bookshop in the Netherlands. My copy of Karen Memory also had an adventure. I took it with me to read at the hospital while waiting for my girlfriend to wake up from narcosis after surgery. Of course I forgot to take it home with me. The nurses were kind enough to put it away for me. It then spent a week in the hospital before I could collect it. I'm grateful to the hospital staff, if it had gone missing I would have missed out on an incredibly fun read.

Karen Memery is a 'seamstress'  in Rapid City, a town on the west coast of the United States. She works in Madame Damnable's establishment, catering to high paying clientèle. Life in Hôtel Mon Cherie is thoroughly disrupted when two injured prostitutes appear at their door. They are taken in to recover from their injuries but only minutes later one of the more influential citizens of Rapid City and owner of one of the cheap brothels in town, Peter Bantle, comes calling. His demands are the beginning of a feud that will see Karen plunged in a whirlwind of murder, corruption and violence but will also introduce her to the love of her life.

The novel is set in an alternative version of the 1870's. It is essentially a steampunk western. It is full of strange technologies and fantastical machines. The timeline has been adapted a bit by moving the Alaskan gold rush a few decades back. Rapid City is fictional but it is clearly inspired by some towns that did exist at the time. The setting reminded me a lot of Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century books. There are lots of references in the book to historical figures in the Old West, although their lives, given the alternative timeline, rarely follow the historical paths. For readers who are well acquainted with the period but not too attached to western clichés, there is a lot to be had in Bear's alternative timeline.

Prostitutes are a cliché in both westerns and other genres. They are almost always secondary characters. Women rarely seen as persons by their clients or the writers who use them as characters. Apparently many writers find them hard to write and many readers find it hard to identify which such a character. Bear breaks right though these preconceptions in this novel. Karen is a well rounded character. Her life has not been easy but she has held on to her optimism, dreams and sense of humour. Contrary to the dominant view of her profession displayed in many novels, she is neither a victim nor powerless. In fact, she has a very clear opinion of the fallen woman (or, as they put it in this novel, soiled dove) nonsense that surrounds her. Whichever way you look at it, Karen is (no pun intended) a memorable character.

Bear tackles other clichés in the books as well. The view that the American West was entirely populated by white cowboys and red Indians for instance. With the occasional lost Mexican mixed in if you were lucky. The cast is remarkable diverse. Karen herself is half Danish and the novel also includes a black law man, a Comanche warrior, French, Russian, Chinese and Indian (as in from the country in Asia) characters. Rapid City is a mix of cultures, languages and customs much more representative of historical fact than the dime novels Karen and her colleagues read to entertain themselves. Bear uses the possibilities all these different cultures offer to create a rich environment to tell her story. I thought it was a very well developed setting.

Karen herself is the narrator of the story. She is not a character with a lot of formal education so she tells it to us like she experienced it. The book is written in the first person and is seen entirely from her point of view. Her style is humorous and full of tongue-in-cheek comments on  men and the world around her. Her language is straightforward, full of poor grammar and a kind of vernacular that would have been ruthlessly stamped out by any respectable English teacher of the time. It is quite an achievement that Bear has managed to carry this style for an entire novel without fail. It must have been a challenging book to edit.

The plot itself is that of a good adventure story. Bear keeps the pace up and doesn't let herself get distracted by side plots. The whole story is neatly wrapped up at the end. Although the setting would lend itself to more stories, the novel very much looks like a singleton. As the story advances, the steampunk element becomes more pronounced. Towards the climax of the book, a number of interesting machines play a crucial role in resolving the plot. Bear allows her characters to grow first, without the distraction of too many gimmicks. It's a well structured book in that sense. The main character carries the story, not the cool machines or other steampunk technology.

Karen Memory is a book I appreciate in several ways. On one level it is a fast-paced adventure, on the other it challenges a number of clichés encountered in genre fiction. I loved Karen's sense of humour and the immersive alternative history Bear has created. It's a very fun read. Not as demanding as Bear's previous novels in the Eternal Sky universe perhaps, but clearly showing her versatility as a writer. It is a 2015 release you really ought to read. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Book Details
Title: Karen Memory
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 350
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7524-7
First published: 2015

Dragon Heart - Cecelia Holland

I own a copy of Floating Worlds,  Cecelia Holland's only science fiction novel. It has been on my to read list for ages but  I can't seem to get around to reading it. She wrote that novel fairly early on in her career. Most of the rest is historical fiction but once in a while a fantasy novel appears, usually in a historical context. Dragon Heart is an uncut fantasy novel. When Tor offered me a review copy, the book intrigued me. The cover and synopsis promise a traditional epic fantasy but given Holland's oeuvre I had the feeling it would not be quite what the cover suggested. That turned out be correct. Dragon Heart is probably not quite what the reader would expect but it is a very good novel.

Jeon is sent to collect his mute sister Tirza from the monastery where her mother, Queen of Ocean Castle has hidden her away. On the way back, their ship is attacked by a dragon. Jeon survives the sinking of the ship and returns home. Tirza is captured by the dragon. A bond between the two is established that can't be broken by Tirza's eventual escape. When she returns home, many months later, she finds the situation there desperate. Her mother is forced to marry a brother of the emperor whose army killed her father. She has held of, grieving for her supposedly killed daughter, but with Tirza's return, there is no more putting off the inevitable. A power struggle between the old ruling family and the empire is about to begin.

There are two very clear elements in this novel that show it is written by an experienced author. The first is the pacing, which is absolutely amazing. The author takes the time to develop Tirza. Since she can't speak to any of the characters but the dragon, the first section of the novel is where we get to know her. Holland also slips in some history of her family disguised as legends. Once we get back to Castle Ocean and more points of view get mixed in, a game of pretence develops between the empire's representatives and the locals. Like the waves crashing on the beach below Castle Ocean, a series of increasingly violent confrontations wash over the reader, raising the tension until the final, lethal climax of the book becomes inevitable.

The second element of the novel that I really liked was the way it relies on what the author doesn't tell us as much as on what is described. Castle Ocean is a mysterious place. There is a bit of haunted house horror in this novel as well as epic fantasy. The reader gets clues along the way but almost never a straight explanation. For the locals, the events in Castle Ocean are business as usual, nothing to remark upon. For the empire they are a mystery, one they don't care to think about as the habits of the local primitives are beneath them. Holland skilfully uses this to slowly reveal to the reader what we need to know to fully understand the plot.

Just as Holland limits what she tells us about Castle Ocean and the area around it, information about the empire is scarce. We know it is huge and still expanding, technologically more advanced than Castle Ocean and that it radiates the arrogance of power. Where many authors would choose to add more worldbuilding and develop this part of the story beyond the bare minimum Holland keeps her novel concise. It is focussed on the events in Castle Ocean, a very isolated part of the world, and word of events taking place in the world outside their borders penetrates slowly. It is another example of how Holland uses what you don't get to see to shape the story.

Tirza's family has a connection with the castle, the ocean and the lands along the coast the empire fails to understand. They live with the rhythm of the tides, return to the ocean in times of distress and are intimately familiar with the land, seasons and weather. The novel contains a lot of imagery based on storms, waves, foam and tides. The locals exploit this knowledge in their conflict with the empire in a number of very clever ways. In a way Dragon Heart is a tale based on a conqueror's underestimation of the locals. A fairly common theme in fantasy.

Tirza's family is tied to Castle Ocean, they belong there but to an extent it also keeps them prisoner. Their family's history is ingrained in the walls of the castle. The empire may represent culture, splendour, riches and advanced technology, none of it will be able to break the link with their home. It is the tragedy of Tirza, who was despised by her mother but loved by her siblings, that she is unable to communicate her feelings on the matter. As the Castle claims her siblings, the rift between her and the family's residence increases. She is torn between wanting to break away and wanting to protect her home until one of the two must give.

I'm very impressed with this novel. It is so tightly written and so well paced that I can't really find anything negative to say about it. Dragon Heart is one of those fantasies you can enjoy without committing to a sprawling series or a single huge tome. I have no idea if Holland planned sequels. It is not impossible to write more in this setting, but the story in Dragon Heart doesn't require it. Some readers may find it a bit too concise, preferring to spend more time with the many point of view characters. I feel Holland has the skill to give them depth in the short time we spend with them.In less than 300 pages, Holland packs everything a good fantasy needs. Something more than a few fantasy authors should take note of.

Book Details
Title: Dragon Heart
Author: Cecelia Holland
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 288
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-4668-3649-5
First published: 2015

The Just City - Jo Walton

I read Jo Walton's love letter to science fiction, Among Others, in 2011. That was my first encounter with Walton's fiction. The book is not autobiographical but it does borrow elements from Walton's life. Most notably her reading habits. Walton read an awful lot of science fiction and Among Others is riddled with references to them. One of the things that stood out in that novel, is a number of references to the works of Plato, to which she was pointed by Mary Renault's historical novel The Last of the Wine. Plato must have impressed the young Morwenna/Jo because in The Just City we return to him. It's another novel that is hard to categorize. It contains philosophy, Greek mythology, robots and time travel. Sounds like a book that is very hard to market to me. Tor thinks they can do it though. The Just City is the first in a trilogy and the second book, The Philosopher Kings, is scheduled for publication in July. Walton is currently writing the third volume, Necessity, which is expected for some time next year.

The Just City is based on Plato's idea of an ideal city-state. He put it forward in his most famous work: The Republic. Athena, the Greek god of wisdom, takes an interest in these ideas and decides to start an experiment. In a time before the Trojan War, she founds a city on the island of Thera and populates it with people who have read The Republic in the original Greek and prayed to her. From all over history, people are taken to the city to lay the foundations of Plato's ideal and become the teachers for the first generation of citizens. Then thousands of 10-year-old enslaved children are taken to the city to grow up in a community unlike any other in history. Their goal is to pursue arete, which Walton translates as excellence but more commonly translated as virtue. Plato's ideals are not without their flaws though. Gradually, cracks begin to appear.

Walton tells the story from three different points of view. The first is Apollo, god of the sun and brother to Athena. After his adventure with Daphne, a nymph who chooses to turn into a tree rather than have sex with him, he decides there are things mortals can teach him. Reborn as a Greek boy he is taken to the city to live among the children of the Just City. Maia, is a 19th century woman and talented scholar who after the death of her father wonders what to do with her life. Society makes it impossible for her to pursue a career in academia and so she prays to Athena to take her to Plato's utopia. The goddess takes her to become one of the masters in the Just City. One of her pupils is Simmea, freed form slavery some time between the 6th and 11th century in Egypt. Scarred by her experiences as a slave, she thrives in the city which stimulates her curiosity and challenges her to excel. She is not blind to the discontent around her though.

These three points of view show us Plato's ideal and its problems, or, to put it in other words, show us Walton's reaction to Plato. The author has done a very good job of keeping the book accessible. I have read a bit of Greek mythology but as far as philosophy goes, I've never progressed beyond Sophie's World which does contain quite a large section on Socrates, another important figure in this novel, and Plato himself. I had no trouble following the story although you might get more out of it if you do know a bit more about the source material. What the novel did do was have me look up a number of references to artworks that are scattered throughout the text and read up on the historical figures that populate the city. I probably spent more time on that than reading the actual book. There are quite few historical characters, usually under a name adopted when they joined the Just City, making their identity a bit of a puzzle for the reader. Walton knows how to trigger the reader's curiosity, that is for sure.

The novel is something of a dialogue in the Socratic sense. It is not so much about the characters rather than the position they take in the debate. And that is what the Just City is, a long-running debate. Walton's two major criticisms of Plato's ideal are in essence that a 10-year-old is not a tabula rasa as he supposes and that he severely misunderstands human sexuality. Pile on top of that all the little practical things The Republic does not mention and you can see the whole thing start to slide from the very first moment. That is not to say they don't achieve anything, but Plato's ideal seems a long way off by the end of the book.

Sexism is the most obvious obstacle in achieving Plato's ideals the book tackles. The situation is a bit curious to put it mildly. For most of history across many societies women were not seen fit to pursue careers in art, science or the military and that attitude is shared by many of the teachers Alhena brings to the city. Plato (and Socrates) argue that in utopia such discrimination would not exist and so the city teaches both genders the same things. That doesn't change the attitude of many of the men present in the city however, something the female main characters run into time and again. It is not always out in the open but throughout the book examples of how the opinion of women are not taken as seriously can be found and how the women have to find a way around it to get things done. Walton's portrayal of the position of women in the Just City is one of a more subtle kind of sexism than what most of the characters would have encountered in their own time but it is still depressingly obvious.

Where Plato's ideas on equality were revolutionary, his ideas on relationships and sexuality and raising children are plain odd. This is a hugely complicated part of the novel as the ancient Greeks use terms like love, affection and friendship in different ways than we are used to. Walton uses the Greek terms agape, eros and philia in the novel to keep apart the various relationships between the characters. There is a fourth word in ancient Greek to describe love, storge, but that kind of love plays a minimal role in the novel. These four kinds of love, and especially agape are later used by Christian philosophers in a slightly different context than the ancient Greeks did and that muddies the waters a bit.

The idea behind the city is that people do not form pairs but that procreation is arranged in such a way that the strongest possible offspring is produced. The children are then raised communally and not by their parents. This idea is very distasteful to the modern readers in the light of Nazi racial theories but most of the characters are from earlier times in history and they don't see it that way. It does disrupt the desire to form families and, not surprisingly, the restrictions the city imposes on sexual activity and relationships are broken by just about everybody. Being forced to have sex with people selected though a (rigged) lottery results in some positive but also, inevitably, negative experiences for both sexes. It is without a doubt the most problematic element in the Just City. Walton uses it to discuss issues like birth control, upbringing of children, rape (including a scene where Apollo is forced to do something despicable), sexual freedom and relationships. It would seem that the Just City cannot come about until humanity settles these issues, which makes me wonder if it ever will.

The Just City is without a doubt one of the most interesting books I've read in ages. It combines a story that is highly readable with an enormous amount of food for thought. I could probably go on for quite a while on all the influences, history and philosophy that went into it. I haven't even discussed the importance of art for instance. Or the debates on what constitutes intelligence. Or the ever present question of how much of Socrates' teachings is Plato putting words into his mouth. It's quite clear that Walton is not finished with this creation and that there is plenty of material left for the second and third book. While the novel itself ends with a satisfying climax (a debate of course, it could hardly have ended another way) I look forward to delving deeper into Walton's thoughts on Plato's Just City. The Just City is one of the 2015 books you do not want to miss.

Book Details
Title: The Just City
Author: Jo Walton
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 368
Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3266-0
First published: 2015

The Elysium Commission - L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Although much of his output is fantasy, L.E. Modesitt, Jr. delivers a science fiction novel every other year or so. The Elysium Commission is the most recent of these I own and it is already eight years old. It's been on the to read stack for over six years now. I came across it while digging for Terry Pratchett's Small Gods that suffered a similar faith. Like many of Modesitt's science fiction novels, The Elysium Commission is a standalone, although it does have many links with his other works. The novel will not surprise readers familiar with Modesitt's work. It is, as always, solidly written, well plotted and fairly fast paced but it does rely on views Modesitt expressed in many other novels as well.

Blaine Donne has settled into a career as private investigator after serving in the military. He does moderately well and manages to get enough clients to pay for the considerable expenses of his job and his more altruistic side activities. One day, he gets a request to look into the connection between a wealthy entertainment mogul and a scientist. It seems straightforward but is soon becomes clear that Donne looking into the matter is not appreciated by the object of his investigation. After the first attempt on his life, he is caught up in a series of events that unveils a conspiracy large enough to threaten the very existence of the planet.

The novel is set in a fairly distant future on a planet colonized by humans. The city most of the action takes place in is modeled after Paris and many of the names of places, institutions and people have a French flavour, often referring to some of the French literary greats. I couldn't help wondering how much of this novel was inspired by Hugo's Les Misérables for instance. The dynamic between Donne and a police officer named Javerr reminded me of Valjean and Javert and the name seems obvious. Names are big thing in this novel. Modesitt refers to a lot of science fiction and fantasy writers in the novel as well. There are references to Robert Jordan, David Harwell (Modesitt's editor at Tor), Gene Wolfe and Paula Volsky, among others.

The planet appears to be unified but there are several factions in human occupied space with different outlooks on society. One of them is a faction based on the Mormons that shows up in a number of other books. Although the balance of power between these factions is only vaguely discussed, it does limit the effectiveness of the  planetary government and it's space to maneuver. Something that has far-reaching consequences for the plot of the novel.

Modesitt's approach to the novel is familiar. Donne's career path is similar to that of Daryn Alwyn in The Octagonal Raven (2001) and Jonat DeVrai in Flash (2004) for instance. He strikes out for himself after a career in the military. He keeps in shape, keeps up his piloting skills and has a more or less similar outlook on society. Much of what Donne thinks of society, and what other characters contribute over the course of the novel can be linked back to the Paradigms of Power, a set of principles that govern society in his novel Adiamante (1996). One of the factions mentioned in the book may also refer to a faction in his novel The Parafaith War (1996). I haven't read that one myself and he changed the spelling a bit bit so I might be wrong there. The Parafaith War and it's 2003 sequel The Ethos Effect (which I have read) do share the same outlook on society, ethics and the use of power though. Although none of these novels appear to be set in the same future, Modesitt's vision of socety is very consistent across these novels and often voiced by Exton Land, the philosopher Modesitt named after himself.

Where Donne does deviate from other characters is his activities as knight of the shadows. He walks the streets of the city exposing criminals after their intent is clear but before they can do physical harm. In a high-tech society is true identity cannot remain hidden of course and in the later stages it becomes a fact used to put pressure on him. So a dark knight looking to foil a plot by a super rich megalomaniac. If you put it that way, the plot sound downright simplistic. Entertaining perhaps, but not something that you'd remember long after finishing it. Modesitt once stated that he thinks a book should first entertain the reader or whatever else you try to do with it will not matter as the reader will abandon it. This plot creates opportunities for entertainment but it is the deeper layer that makes of breaks the novel in my opinion.

What I liked about it, is that the dark night can't just take a gadget out of his pocket and neutralize the villain. He is hemmed in on all sides by the need to comply with laws and regulations, by public appearance and by his own moral standards. These limitations don't just work for him, it is something everyone, from the highest level of government to the lowest level in law enforcement have to deal with. Not everything they do is legal, but is has to appear legal. Not even the villain, who is not above assassination, bribing or mass murder if it suits his purpose, escapes these restrictions. It is one of the examples of the internal logic of Modesitt's worlds that can be found throughput his novels. As a result, no actions without consequence, excellence cannot be achieved without hard work and no victory is without a price. It's this rigorous consistency that allows the plot to attain more depth than my dark knight versus megalomaniac villain comment suggests.

I do think that Modesitt leans on what he has done before a bit too much in this novel. Not so much in terms of characters (an often heard criticism of his work) but thematically. Over the course of many novels he's laid out a structure of ethics, views on society and human nature that is so central to his work that it is almost misleading to consider The Elysium Commission a standalone story. The author builds on the foundations he has laid in earlier books. They are so interlinked in a way that you will get more out of this novel if you have read more of his work. If you like Modesitt's writing you can't really go wrong with this one, but if you are looking for a good entry point into his oeuvre I'd look elsewhere. 

Book Details
Title: The Elysium Commission
Author: L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 356
Year: 2008
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7653-5654-3
First published: 2007