Lit Reviews Archive

0

Book Review: The Anthology of European SF

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 24, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews, Reviews

In the introduction to the Anthology of European SF, editors Cristian Tamaş and Roberto Mendes outline their intention to use an exploration of European identity as the framework for an anthology of science fiction. Specifically, they assert that “Europe has a political union and a common market, but not a cultural common market or a publishing common market.” As a result, the editors are keen to showcase this collection as a means of mobilizing Europe’s native talent for a European audience while also bringing it to the world at large.

As a result the Anthology of European SF is rather broad in its approach to the genre. For example, Ian R. MacLeod’s The Dead Orchards opens the book with a story that lands at the intersection of fantasy, post-apocalyptic story-telling, and horror. Jetse de Vries’ Transcendent Express stands out as classic “hard” SF, and is perhaps one of the best stories of the anthology for the effort. There’s even a bit of Lovecraftian horror, in both style and form, from Liviu Radu’s Digits Are Cold, Numbers Are Warm. Even without the safety net of an explicit theme or trope to hold the anthology together, a great many of these stories are strong enough to stand on their own. Generally those tales which fall short of the mark do so in terms of failing to present a measurable conflict; the strength of their prose is undeniable, but from my point of view a story must do more than build a world and end on a note of introspection.

Honour Roll

Starsong by Aliette de Bodard

As a rule, I tend to avoid recognizing reprints in this section of my anthology reviews. I think I better serve my readers by highlighting new works of fiction, rather than dwelling on stories which have already received an initial publication credit, and likely critical praise, outside of the anthology. I’m happily breaking this rule for Starsong.

The first few hundred words of Starsong almost put me off the story. The prose is elegant but somewhat difficult to parse. Further adding to the story’s opaque nature is a structure which shifts between ethereal and temporal narratives. Whatever confusion I initially felt, however, was put aside as the two layers effortlessly folded into each other. By the end of my first read through, I couldn’t believe I had even considered writing off the write-off. Mea culpa.

Starsong grounds its inner/outer universe dialogues in terms of a double story about humanity’s relationship to technology and its relationship to itself. It does so through focusing on a young woman’s marginalization from society at large. While this motif is nothing new within science fiction, Starsong pulls at the threads of this vast tapestry in a very compelling way. Ideas of racism and alienation are teased as to make the reader wonder if the “other” is indeed a literal alien. This was the hook for me. The finisher was when the story made me wonder why I thought the former question was somehow a relevant distinction.

For its ability to blend contemporary issues of racism, race loyalty, and xenophobia within a far-future human civilization, Starsong is not a story to be missed.

Repeat Performances by Carmelo Rafala

It is a rare and wonderful thing to see a story which is so much bigger than the few thousand words it comprises. Using near-future Mexico as a setting, Repeat Performances invokes elements of Latin American culture as a base for the story’s extended metaphors – FYI: de Bodard’s story does the same thing. How interesting that this part of the world prove such a fertile ground for European storytelling.

The conflict at hand is driven by an attempt to reclaim agency and reunite family within a world of exploitative flesh traders and post-humans who have symbiotic relationships with alien parasites. I believe this to be something of an intentional commentary in that all of the story’s post-humans are all children who have willingly embraced having their bodies changed at the hands of an extraterrestrial McGuffin. Where children are curious enough to forfeit part of their humanity to become something else, the adults only seem capable of recognizing an opportunity to appropriate something for their own ends.

Though this was my first exposure to Rafala’s writing, I think I would gladly read a novel set within this world.

News from a Dwarf Universe by Dănuţ Ungureanu

A very simple concept drives News from a Dwarf Universe: that of a machine capable of shrinking anything and then returning said object to its original size. Using a documentarian’s voice, Ungureanu shows how this technology could usher in a golden age for humanity, at least until a significant percentage of the population gets stuck in their shrunk down state. In that light, it is hard not to look at this story as a parable on the dangers of becoming dependent upon a technology which is not fully understood.

Beyond that, this piece is commendable for its efficiency in storytelling. It’s one thing to read a work of fiction where the author says “what if” with a new piece of technology. Witnessing Ungureanu introduce said technology only to remove it, and in turn showing the ways in which this upsets the apple cart, all while working within the confines of short fiction is no small (no pun intended) achievement.

While News from a Dwarf Universe is something of a lesson in hubris, it’s also an optimistic, if cautionary, tale on a sustainable lifestyle.

The Bottom Line

If the goals of this anthology were to A) expose readers to quality content from the European science fiction community and B) promote ISF Magazine and Europa SF at large, then I would say mission accomplished. The majority of the stories in this anthology are quite good, and a few are absolutely great. Those that failed to deliver, for me at least, did so because actual story proved secondary to style, remarkable as the latter may have been. Overall, the Anthology of European SF is a solid read and a promise of great things to come from its editors and parent publisher.

The Anthology of European SF

Edited by Cristian Tamaş and Roberto Mendes

Published by ISF Magazine and Europa SF


Tags: , , , , , , , ,
1

Book Review: Cascade Effect by Leah Petersen

By
Adam Shaftoe
– April 19, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews, Reviews

Cascade Effect is Leah Petersen’s follow-up to her debut novel, Fighting Gravity. In the first book Petersen skillfully paired world building and narrative pacing to introduce readers to a galaxy spanning empire and the relationship between Jake, a scientist born in the slums of Mexico, and Pete, emperor of all creation. The sequel, set some years after Jake’s and Pete’s marriage, dives headlong into a world of court intrigue and interstellar governance.

This change in focus presents some potentially daunting challenges. Petersen’s ability to design an empire that is honest to historical precedent becomes something of a double edged sword; therein it is very hard to put an Emperor and his Prince-Consort into the center of action. Despite Jake’s hot headedness, he is part of an institution where things are done for him. In terms of story structure, this means we witness the principal players reacting to external factors far more than they act upon their own volition. Left to the hands of a lesser writer, such a situation could get boring very quickly. To Petersen’s credit, she mobilizes a number of effective conceptual spaces for Pete and Jake to inhabit during their reactions, which in turn work to draw the entire novel together.

Most obvious is the novel’s allegory on class and entitlement. Though Fighting Gravity gave readers a taste of a future world strictly divided into orders which would have made a French nobleman blush, Cascade Effect delves deeper into the institutional discrimination of Pete’s empire. Not only does this shade the setting in a more interesting way, but it also justifies some of Jake’s perpetual thick-headedness as a character. When Jake puffs his chest, intent to confront a powerful Duke, he receives a stern Cersei Lannister-like rebuff on the rules of the world in which he now inhabits.

Where being an un-class, the lowest of all social orders, was perhaps a convenient excuse to alienate Jake in the first novel, it now shapes the way in which he interacts with the world. Though this is a clear commentary from the author on contemporary issues of poverty and wealth, as a reader we are invited to seriously consider the merits of meritocracy paired with aristocracy. Despite Jake’s low birth he was elevated to a position of prestige and comfort by virtue of a system which seemingly oppresses the rest of the un-class. Even if the characters that defend this system are distasteful, it does not preclude a discussion on effective ways to order a society and a broader question on nature versus nurture in class distinction.

Concurrent to the politics of Cascade Effect’s world, is the unfolding story of Pete and Jake’s marriage. Much of the court intrigue and various assassination attempts visited upon Jake stem not from an overt hate of him individually, but what he represents as an un-class marrying into the royal family. This, combined with certain events from Fighting Gravity, places a strain on Pete’s and Jake’s relationship.

Even as a reader who has no measurable appetite for “romance” I found these sequences to be well handled. Pete is all forgiving, arguably to a fault, and Jake is stubborn to point of palpable frustration. This should result in a zero-sum game when it comes to their interactions. Yet I still found myself invested in their domestic squabbles as those conflicts are so intimately linked to the grander story of looming civil unrest within the empire.

While there’s no doubt in my mind that the core story works quite well, there were some elements along the way which felt underdeveloped. Amid perpetual scandal and disdain from the imperial court, Jake takes solace in his science. When his research is usurped for military purposes, Jake’s outrage seems restricted to that particular movement within the novel. Granted, I could be picking at nits in this point, but the prose is rather intense in the way it sets up the potential for destruction at the hands of Jake’s would-be weapons. In turn, I was expecting something on the magnitude of the Manhattan Project, or some other suitable game changer. Perhaps this is a theme which will be revisited in the next installment of the series.

Overall, Cascade Effect is a worthy successor to Fighting Gravity. With the focus shifting to Jake’s life at court, the novel is free to use the entirety of the empire as a means of bringing the story to the characters. Leah Petersen has done well to weave together the social science of science fiction, themes of court intrigue so often found within fantasy novels, and a thread of honest romance to bind it all together.


Tags: , ,
0

Novella Review: The Salt and Iron Dialogues

By
Adam Shaftoe
– April 5, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews

At this past World Fantasy Con I had a chat with Matthew Johnson about his novel Fall From Earth. Though it had been a year since I read his book, I commented on the lasting impression he had made with his unique talent for blending a powerful narrative voice with grand world building. Then, like most readers enraptured with a compelling concept, I asked the dreaded question: did he have any plans for a sequel? At the time, the answer was no. Needless to say I was thrilled when The Salt and Iron Dialogues proved to be the second sortie into his Borderless Empire that I had been waiting for.

I hesitate to call the novella a prequel, however. Prequels are usually burdened by a motivation, or perhaps even an unfair expectation, to establish causality between distinct elements of an individual mythos. All too often the goal of explicating something subtle or somehow deemed “missing” in the original story results in an author “telling” rather than “showing” in a retroactive follow-up. Such is not the case here. Even though Salt and Iron keeps a focus on Shi-Jin, the once and future defeated revolutionary of Fall From Earth, this younger iteration doesn’t merely exist to inform her future self. We can see shades of the Shi-Jin that is to come, but the transformation from apt student to dangerous convict is still rooted firmly in the subtext and imagination of the author.

One of the most compelling aspects of this story, also witnessed in Fall From Earth, is Mr. Johnson’s ability to demonstrate the cultural and sociopolitical otherness that science fiction is capable of generating when trusted to the hands of a skilled writer. The Salt and Iron Dialogues is a story couched in history, both internal and appropriated, philosophy, and language. Indeed, the importance of language is reflected in the fact that within the Borderless Empire the Earth has been renamed “Hanzi” – which I believe, and anybody can feel free to correct me on this point, is the name for written Chinese script.

Moreover, where other stories are concerned with creating a space where the reader can insert some version of themselves, Salt and Iron does the opposite to fantastic effect. The influences of Imperial Chinese bureaucracy within the Borderless Empire and the differentiation between Shi-Jin’s native colonial language and the “Earthlang” of Hanzi tell me quite clearly that I could not easily project myself into this narrative space. I dare say that is one reason why I find this world so compelling. Equal parts genuine curiosity and a subtle desire to fit in helped to propel me through the text. Conceptually, everything within the Borderless Empire is familiar: a hegemonic government, colony planets, and space ships. Yet they are all wrapped within a hierarchical culture which is as fascinating as it is intimidating.

It’s hard not to recognize the risk in such a stylistic approach. It certainly would have been easier to craft a space British Empire in the fashion of Honor Harrington whereby readers with even a passing amount of familiarity with Horatio Hornblower, or England as a place on the map, can find a natural point of entry. Instead Salt and Iron uses internal parables, Confucian philosophy, and the allegory of a chess game to take the “barbarian” reader and colonize them into the Borderless Empire. It is science fiction for a student of the humanities.

While The Salt and Iron Dialogues stands perfectly well on its own, I can’t imagine a reader enjoying it and not wanting to engage with the larger related work. The novella can be seen as a litmus test for a reader’s willingness to engage with a polity of ideas, metaphors, and future history. Individuals coming to this story having read the aforementioned novel will no doubt revel in a chance to revisit Shi-Jin and her world.

The Salt and Iron Dialogues is written by Matthew Johnson and published by Bundoran Press


Tags: , , ,
0

Short Story Review: The Human Division – Episode 10 – This Must Be the Place

By
Adam Shaftoe
– March 22, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews

What? Adam is reviewing the tenth episode of a serialised novel that he hasn’t written about since the first part came out two-and-a-half months ago? What’s the deal?

The truth is, I don’t know if I would have put pen to paper on this chapter of The Human Division were it not for the following few tweets from John Scalzi, himself.

Click to enlarge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I can see both sides of the argument surrounding “This Must Be the Place,” I think it stands out as one of the best episodes in the series to date.

As Scalzi says over on his blog this is not a particularly science fiction heavy episode. Hart Schmidt, one of the overall story’s main characters, goes home to visit his family on Phoenix, the capital world of the Colonial Union. Before driving out to his family’s compound, yeah they’re that rich, Hart luxuriates in a hotel room for a night, savouring the personal space and hot water showers absent on the CU diplomatic starship he calls home. Upon arrival, he banters with his siblings, gets pressured to enter politics by his father, and endures his mother’s editorial comments on a lack of grandchildren bearing Hart’s DNA. Save for the wealth and political office, it’s a bit like a visit to my long-time girlfriend’s parent’s house. Considering the all too common nature of such an experience, I expect a certain demographic is going to really latch on to this story.

Beyond this specific appeal, I can still see a broader purpose for this episode within the “humanity turned against itself” conflict of The Human Division. Simply put, we finally have a character to care about.

This isn’t to say the other characters aren’t memorable. But the pace of THD does not allow for crafting extensive back stories. We learn about the characters as they exist in the moment. How they change from episode to episode weaves the tapestry of who they are, but only ever in medias res. So if Scalzi decided he wanted to kill somebody, say Harry Wilson, I’d only miss him to the extent that he was a tie-in character to Old Man’s War…well that and his hilarious rant about the Chicago Cubs being the ultimate definition of failure in professional sports. Even in the future, the Cubs are renowned for their inability to win.

In taking us through Hart Schmidt’s history, Scalzi is facilitating an opportunity to genuinely empathize with the character. After nine episodes of action, exposition, one-off encounters on Earth, and one story which was entirely told as dialogue – which for the record, I thought was boring as hell – readers can now get good and invested in a character as the stakes get raised through the final three chapters. Dare I even suggest Hart is emerging as a hero of this story? The only down side is this paints a giant target on Ned Stark’s, I mean Hart Schmidt’s back.

The trip to Phoenix has the additional benefit of adding more depth to the universe in which the story is set. Prior to this chapter, I don’t recall any serious discussions of economic class distinction within the Colonial Union. Active service members of the Colonial Defence Forces don’t pay for anything during their ten years of service. When John Perry musters out of the CDF I don’t remember any evidence of poverty on either of the two CU planets that we see. While I never suspected the CU to be the United Federation of Planets, it nevertheless seemed somewhat egalitarian, at least until this week.

Hart Schmidt’s family read as if they were the Space Kennedys. Mind you, it would have been all too easy to turn Hart’s father into Mitt Romney, or some other send-up of contemporary douche bag gentry. Hart’s desire to leave the family “business” and join the CU would have worked just as well under such a model, and I, as a reader, would have still felt a strong empathy toward Hart’s character. Instead, Scalzi writes about wealthy people as we would want them to be, rather than raging against how they are today.

Alastair Schmidt is connected to the usual bootstrap rhetoric, but he also plays the patron, creating jobs for people which allow them to meaningfully pursue their passions during their downtime. Though demanding to his staff, he works toward a sense of greater good, using politics to support the people of Phoenix rather than having them legitimize his own power base. He’s the kind of elder statesman that Rousseau talks about in The Social Contract. Science fiction needs these sorts of ideas. Amid a new dystopia every week, stories that believe in ideals and individual freedoms seem in considerably short supply.

This glimpse into daily life on Phoenix also works to justify the often heavy handed and seemingly Machiavellian decisions of the CDF and the Colonial Union’s upper echelons. Humanity needs the CU to make the hard choices for the species, which in turn allows Alastair Schmidt to focus the nuances of a coalition government in Phoenix’s parliament. Where the CU used to look like an arbitrary and arrogant organization, and I hated myself for being duped into agreeing with their rhetoric, it now appears as the institution which allows the arts to flourish behind the shield of the CDF.

Even though “This Must Be the Place” is a change of pace for The Human Division, it defiantly works as an effort to build character depth and make the world of the Colonial Union a more authentic place in the eyes of readers. Given its placement within the thirteen episode arc, I can only imagine some very bad things are about to happen to the Clarke and the Colonial Union at large.


Tags: , , ,
0

Book Review: First Impressions of Brave New Worlds

By
Adam Shaftoe
– March 8, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews, Reviews

Brave New Worlds, an anthology of dystopian short fiction edited by John Joseph Adams, came my way via Netgalley. I knew I wanted to review this collection when I saw the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, and Kim Stanley Robinson, just to name a few, in the book’s table of contents. When the review copy landed in my inbox, it proved to be something unexpected. Rather than a complete anthology, Netgalley sent me the additions included in the book’s second edition: three new short stories and a few essays.

Ah well, better than nothing.

Even on their own, these three stories work quite well as explorations of dystopian themes. As ambassadors for the larger anthology, the works of Robert Reed, Jennifer Pelland, and Ken Liu demonstrate a sound understanding of what the sub-genre owes to past writers while simultaneously examining the innocuous but potentially dystopian elements of our own contemporary world.

For want of a full anthology to review, I thought it would be fun to drill down on the stories at my disposal.

The Cull by Robert Reed

Reed approaches the dystopia through the lens of a small colony of humans who have survived the collapse of civilization. While there is still some life left on the Earth, it endures in a handful of self-contained enclaves. Thought control and social engineering contribute to most of the story’s dystopian themes. The central conflict itself speaks to the more specific issue of managing exceptional people in a controlled environment.

Orlando, one of the story’s two central characters, is equal parts bully and genius. He believes himself to be special while living within a community which necessitates an enforced egalitarianism as a means of survival. As readers we’re left to wonder if genius is capable of elevating a small community, or if such natural talent is inherently destructive for its tendency to raise the individual above society?

Personal Jesus by Jennifer Pelland

Personal Jesus is an exposition on American theocracy. Set in the near-future, the story reads as an informational brochure for new arrivals into the Ecumenical States of America. Within this devoutly protestant nation, citizens are expected to wear a “personal Jesus,” which monitors their actions for any indications of sin. The device and the state it represents are couched within the language of loving correction, but ultimately they create a national panopticon, complete with all the Orwellian trappings of anonymous informers, thought control, and forfeiture of self to a greater power.

The story evokes memories of Robert Heinlein’s If This Goes On, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and even some elements of Frank Miller’s “Martha Washington” series of graphic novels. Fascinating as the story is from a thematic point of view, Personal Jesus leaves any immediate plot or conflict as a purely sub-textual element. I would be quite surprised to find out this piece isn’t a Rosetta Stone to a larger work.

The Perfect Match by Ken Liu

Liu plays the allegory very close to the surface in his tale of technological ubiquity. In fact, I was quite leery of this story when protagonist Sai talks to an AI named “Tilly”, who acts as a combination of personal assistant and life coach, and subsequently chides his neighbour for the technophobia she directs against search engine turned tech giant Centillion. Yet the narrative, through a few twists and turns, proves wholly satisfying. Equally interesting is the The Perfect Match’s discussion on the digital age turning humans into Cyborgs, after the fashion of Donna Haraway.

The most compelling question is found when Centillion’s CEO asks Sai what he expects to find in an off-the-grid world where privacy is “protected.” Amid real world discussions on Facebook and Google mining personal information, it seems apropos for Liu to examine the endgame from both perspectives. How do we reconcile a desire, perhaps even a need, to be connected with privacy as an abstract concept? The Perfect Match does not attempt to answer these questions outright. Instead it positions itself as a think piece, challenging readers to consider technological integration, and its market impact, as an imperfect solution for an imperfect species. Is a Google crafted infosphere not a better thing than some Hobbesian state of nature? Is the self-same data aggregator a gilded cage, or a study in practical post-industrial efficiency?

Verdict

With only these stories as a sample of the entire anthology, I’m quite confident Brave New Worlds would appeal to readers with even a passing interest in exploring dystopian themes.

Brave New Words

Edited by: John Joseph Adams

Published by: Night Shade Books


Tags: , , , , ,
2

A Week With Daily Science Fiction

By
Adam Shaftoe
– February 22, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews

I’ve been an on-again off-again reader of Daily Science Fiction for the last year or so. While I have always appreciated their offerings, I only recently signed up for their story-a-day subscription service. After enjoying two weeks worth of stories mixed in with my morning coffee, I’m left wondering why I waited so long to subscribe. Even when a DSF story fails to resonate with me as a reader, the critic in me finds it impossible to dismiss the quality of the prose, not to mention the editorial variety that founders/publishers/editors Michelle-Lee Barasso and Jonathan Laden offer on a day-to-day basis.

In that light, I thought I would hide from my ever growing TBR pile and review a week’s worth of DSF short stories.

Image via: jflaxman on DeviantArt

For the People by Ronald D. Ferguson

For the People is a near-future politically themed dystopia, likely representing the worst nightmares of American Tea Partiers and their ilk. The story struck me as a combination of something drawn from Heinlein’s Revolt in 2100 cycle paired with a splash of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid “Patriot” mythos.

It’s particularly interesting to see how this story explores the line between domestic terrorists and freedom fighters. While hardly a new discussion, Ferguson’s story is quite striking in its attempt to portray the terrorist as a powerless pawn in a larger game. Moreover, elements of horror manage to add an unexpected level of humanity to the main character. Though I anticipated the ending, I don’t think the author is making any serious attempt to dissemble on his denouement. The delivery is strong, the prose is evocative, and the underlying subtext on the dysfunctional elements of American government is not lost on this reader.

The Needs of Hollow Men by K.A. Rundell

Among the five stories within this particular week of DSF content, The Needs of Hollow Men is my choice for first among equals. From the title I had a horrible vision of a story about invisible people. Instead, the text presents itself as a grimy story of individual agency subjected to the good of a city-state amid a period of social decay.

Perhaps the strongest element of this story is its treatment of the psychic trope. Therein an empathic detective takes emotional suppressants as a means of amplifying the residual psychic footprints left on objects and people. The greatest crime the noir narration expounds upon, however, is not rape or murder, but two empathic individuals sharing an emotionally charged memory. It is certainly common enough to see science fiction mobilizing gifted individuals as resources, but the balance between pathos and logos is rarely so evenly struck as it is within this story. Pair this structural strength with the image of the broken down cop who has seen too much and it amounts to a truly compelling narrative.

My kudos to K.A. Rundell.

A Hairy Predicament by Melissa Mead

One of the benefits to a review project such as this is its ability to force me out of my critical comfort zone. Thus A Hairy Predicament is not something I would have read on my own. Yet it is impossible to ignore the inherent cleverness contained within this piece of writing.

The story combines the Brothers Grimm tales of Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk, examining the logical aftermath of both stories. In doing so, Mead is able to turn these tired staples of storytelling into something new. With relatively few words she adds a significant amount of depth to what would otherwise be cookie cutter character archetypes. Nobody quite lives happily ever after in this piece, but the application of modern social responsibility to classic, and often grotesque, stories meant to scare children works quite nicely.

Maps by Beth Cato

There’s a definite “real” world setting to the history of a woman who, through some supernatural power, keeps drawing maps indicating the significant life events of loved ones. Yet the story is set within a world where social workers and professional magi exist hand-in-hand. As a result, framing this story became something of a puzzle; is it new age mysticism or outright urban magic? Mayhap I should just call it slipstream and move on.

Since the protagonist, Christina, is something of a self-aware Cassandra, the narrative focuses on her self-imposed isolation from society at large. Naturally it’s hard not to feel some level of sympathy for the character. I initially read Christina’s self-mutilation as an attempt to mobilize body horror for shock value. Upon further thought, I think there’s some merit in seeing her self-harm as an allusion, if not an outright commentary, on society’s perceptions of those struggling with mental health issues.

My only point of contention with this story rests in its ending. The end is both sudden and jarring, leaving me unsure what to take from it. The story flows through Christina’s life, steadily building toward an act which will free her from foreknowledge. Once that act happens, her existence is left somewhat overly ambiguous. Can she actually live without the lifelong companionship of her maps? Or is one act of freedom going to lead to the ultimate act of freedom?

Five Minutes by Conor Powers-Smith

After reading this story I immediately thought, “This is what that Next movie should have been like.” The film, which drew a loose inspiration from PKD’s The Golden Boy, dealt with a con man who could see two minutes into the future. Five minutes’ protagonist more than doubles the abilities of Dick’s character.

Though five minutes of foresight is by no means a marginal thing, the story itself is a study into mediocrity. The protagonist doesn’t even rate a name; he is simply referred to as “the man” throughout the story, and he’s a Mets fan to top it all off (at least he’s not a Cubs fan). His heroism is a variation of the limited sort demonstrated in Greek myth when Jason carries Hera across a river. But where Jason went on to form the Hellenic Justice League, the man only catalyzes events within an appropriately small scope. We could then best view Five Minutes as a working man’s super hero story. There’s none of the perpetual handwringing of Spider-Man, but it also eschews the fetishes and god complexes of Watchmen. The man, like any normal, non-prescient person, seeks to find a purpose for himself, independent of his particular powers. In that, he is an endearing character in a story which presents a positive outlook for humanity.

Wrap-up

Two dystopias, two stories of ESP, and one twisted fairy tale amounts to a good week of reading. I look forward to seeing what Daily Science Fiction offers up in the future. Also, at the time of this post, all of these stories are available to read, for free, on the DSF website.


Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Book Review: The Human Division Episode 1 – The B-Team

By
Adam Shaftoe
– February 1, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews

The B-Team is the first episode in John Scalzi’s serialized novel, The Human Division. Set within his multiple award winning Old Man’s War universe, The Human Division returns readers to the high-stakes space opera of the Colonial Union. And for this reader, the reunion could not have come soon enough.

In an attempt to maintain some level of critical objectivity, rather than collapsing outright into a squee-ing mess of Scalzi fanboyism, I approached The B-Team with one question at the forefront of my thoughts: does somebody need to read John Perry’s story, the eponymous Old Man, to appreciate this particular novel? While The Human Division is set after the events of the third/fourth book in the OMW timeline, it’s safe to say that foreknowledge of this world is not required. Be warned, however, The B-Team will yeild some rather large spoilers for the previous books.

For newcomers, Scalzi manages to accomplish in three chapters of The B-Team what he spread out over three OMW books. A scant twenty pages frame the essential science behind the Colonial Union, humanity’s near future-ish space empire, as well as the socio-political monstrosity that is the CU’s governance. Oh, and Scalzi also (re)introduces the green skinned, genetically engineered, cybernetically augmented, consciousness transferred soldiers of the Colonial Defence Force. Yet for all this introduction material, the story does not suffer. The first chapter ends with a space battle. The second is brimming with the sort of humour that has come to embody much of Scalzi’s writing. And in the third chapter The Human Division channels Radiohead in establishing an overall conflict best embodied by the song “You Do It To Yourself”. For all the aliens, starships, and super soldiers, the crux of this series is rooted in human failings.

Similarly, readers who have been waiting for this story since the end of The Last Colony/Zoe’s Tale will find a few things have changed since their last trip into Colonial space. Where readers grew into their previous understanding of the CU as John Perry rose through the ranks of the CDF, The B-Team is a little more up front. The story shifts its perspective between a team of diplomats on a peace mission and a pair of Colonels at the forefront of Colonial policy. This results in an outright revelation detailing the ways in which the CU has bungled things for Humanity in the wake of Roanoke colony.

Yet for all this grand political context, the story of the B-Team is focused and character driven. In earnest, Ambassador Abumwe, a taciturn junior diplomat, and Lt. Wilson, a CDF researcher on loan to the diplomatic corps, are just cogs in a much bigger narrative. Also, Abumwe, Wilson, and crew are about as far as one can get from James T. Kirk and any of his associated archetypes. Their story is one of people who work for a living, moving from one backwater assignment to the next, hoping to make a name for themselves in the process. This creates an instant rapport between reader and characters, which is no small accomplishment considering that Scalzi has written a truly unlikable person in Ambassador Abumwe.

There is also something to be said in the decision to release this book as a serialized novel. It’s an obvious throw-back to the days of pulp space operas, but the story itself is anything but flaky or ephemeral. Priced at 99 cents an issue, The Human Division boats a particularly good risk-reward ratio. In terms of time and money invested, there’s not a lot of loss if The B-Team doesn’t resonate with a potential reader. Meanwhile the rest of us get to endure the giddy thrill of waiting in anticipation for the following week’s installment.

As an unrepentant fan of John Scalzi’s work (seriously, I made a total dork of myself the first time I met the guy) I know I’m not exactly inclined to find fault in his writing. Yet even at my curmudgeonly best, I don’t think I could cite many flaws in The B-Team. Scalzi continues to demonstrate how military sci-fi need not be a fussy and inaccessible niche within a niche, suitable only to the prodigiously detail oriented and/or war-game aficionados. The B-Team is whip smart, funny, and strikes the perfect balance between efficiency and elegance in its prose.

The Human Division: Part 1 – The B-Team

Written by: John Scalzi

Published by: Tor


Tags: , , , ,
4

Book Review: Fear the Abyss

By
Adam Shaftoe
– January 18, 2013Posted in: Lit Reviews

In his introduction to Fear the Abyss, an anthology of dark horror and science fiction from Post Mortem Press, editor Eric Beebe asks, “What is more frightening than an unending unknown?” To answer this question, twenty-two authors present a variety of narrative insights into the relationship between curiosity’s call and the anxieties of discovery.

While these stories are well suited to the editor’s thematic mandate of exploring the science, knowledge, and fear, I believe another concept unites these stories. Almost all the fiction within Fear the Abyss probes the actual act of perception, be it visual, psychic, or something else, as both a reaction to and a means of comprehending the unknown. The tones of pessimism, nihilism, and, in a few cases, optimism which materialize out of these stories speak not simply to the construction of an imagined unknown, but how readily identifiable characters process that which is alien to them. Though the range of sub-genres is broad, from outright body horror to far-future science fiction, the experience is quite cohesive.

Honour Roll

Extraction by Jessica McHugh

Certain stories live on in a person’s memory long after they have been read. Extraction is not one of those stories. Rather, Extraction is the story that gives nightmares to all the other stories which keep a person up at night. Beginning with the phrase “I can’t stop jerking off at work,” what follows is an evocative piece of short fiction, dwelling in the cracks between body horror and contemporary science fiction.

It naturally follows that McHugh’s text is somewhat challenging to read. In exploring a literal form of human alienation, the story risks evoking a particularly sour taste from the reader. For me, the experience prompted equal measures of repulsion and fascination, akin to the first time I watched Hellraiser. Throughout the text, motifs of desire and addiction collide in what is quite rightly a reproductive grotesquery. Unsettling as the imagery may be, it’s not exploitative so much as an attempt to relocate the reader from a safe conceptual realm into a place where any pop culture preconceptions of the fantastic are stripped away. The remnant is a vision of reality which frames the great “other” as something genuinely horrifying to behold.

That Which Does Not Kill You by Matt Moore

Matt Moore offers a near-future war story that blends the best elements of Shelley’s Frankenstein and Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Though there are some aspects of body horror in the story, its raison d’etre seems to be an inquiry into the consequences of denying agency to its two central characters. A number of interesting questions emerge out of this denial of control. Should we have to confront the horrors of our world if there is an escape at hand? At what point do we accept our circumstances rather than trying to work around them?

There’s also a strong juxtaposition between the characters’ inner conflict and the war going on around them. It’s an almost MASH like quality which sees the grand questions of the war ignored. Instead, the story focuses on the war’s casualties, in both physical and psychological terms. In shining just enough light on battlefield apparati to avoid being bogged down in back story, That Which Does Not Kill You showcases the cheapness of life and death in a war where soldiers are adjuncts to military hardware.

The American by S.C. Hayden

I have been waiting for a story like The American for as long as long as I’ve been genre fiction. To me, there’s nothing more tiring than stories which try to shock me with the battle for Heaven as waged on contemporary Earth. We’ve all seen The Exorcist, and most everything that has followed after that, regardless of medium, has been variations on the theme. Moreover, stories of demonic possession often presume too heavily upon the audience’s ability to be moved by the Judeo-Christian legacy.

The American begins as a deceptively derivative story about demonic possession. And then with one perfectly placed knock-out paragraph, which can not be discussed without moving into the realm of spoiling, it takes a tired trope of Christian pseudo-mysticism and places it firmly within a post-modern context. It’s short, smart, and manages to double down on subversion in a genre niche which is firmly rooted in ignorance and superstition.

Life After Dead by Jeyn Roberts

Anytime a writer does something different with zombies, I’m going to pay attention. Though unique in its own right, there are echoes of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road within Life After Dead. Post zombie Vancouver is a bleak and desolate place. The heady thrill of immediate survival, as seen in so many zombie stories/films, has given way to resource scarcity and a profound existential void. The survivors are forced to reconcile their continued existence with the reality that modern city dwellers don’t know how to do anything when it comes to survival in the purest sense of the word.

Now if this story only worked with the above mentioned elements, it would likely still be doing enough to land on my honour roll. The mid-story transformation, however, really makes Life After Dead stand out from the horde. It’s a common enough thing to see a zombie apocalypse survivor putting down an infected loved one; the bio-political struggle between monster and sickie is pretty much standard fare in a post World War Z world. Rather than peeling away another layer of that onion, Roberts’ inverts the format. The result is unexpected and emotionally resonant. A survival narrative morphs into a story about love, and love is rarely handled with such adroit among the undead.

What We Found by Andrew Nienaber

When a writer frames a story around the question “Are we alone,” the answer is almost always yes; I call it the Sagan Doctrine. Answering one of science fiction’s most holy questions with a definitive negative invites not only the wrath of optimistic readers but also opens the door to fundamental questions about the purpose of the narrative itself. Through a survivor’s final words for a future that may never come, Mr. Nienaber imagines the psychological, as well as practical, consequences of terrestrial life as a cosmic accident.

The emerging story is simultaneously a commentary on the ever present isolation and dread of urban life, as well as a thought experiment on humans as creatures of hope. If humanity was confronted with absolute knowledge of our loneliness in the cosmos, would that realisation become a viral meme capable of flaying the humanity out of those who come in contact with it? Could we, as a people who strive to greater and greater heights, cope with a universe beholden unto ourselves? It is a troubling question, but one relevant to a world which pushes the frontiers of astronomy and quantum physics with each passing year.

Honourable Mentions

A Box of Candy by Nelson W. Pyles: A classic ghost tale focused through the lens of Quentin Tarantino style revenge.

Broken Promises by Jamie Lackey: My first thoughts after reading: this is what Prometheus should have been.

The Nostalgiac by Robert Essig: Hitchcock flavoured sci-fi horror focusing on working class characters.

The Bottom Line

Of the twenty-two stories contained within Fear the Abyss, there were only five which didn’t strike some sort of meaningful chord with me. The writers mobilize a broad range of styles and genres to plumb the depths of fear, knowledge, and perception. Would that The Outer Limits were reborn on HBO, freed from the conservatism of network television, I expect its first season would look something like Fear the Abyss.

Fear the Abyss

Edited by: Eric Beebe

Published by: Post Mortem Press


Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Book Review: The Book of Thomas, Volume 1: Heaven

By
Adam Shaftoe
– December 21, 2012Posted in: Lit Reviews

To explore the first volume of Robert Boyczuk’s new series, The Book of Thomas, I think it is necessary to begin in the middle of the story. Therein, an orphan boy with eidetic memory makes a meta commentary on the novel as a medium. In reflecting on a world where the Church has banned all books save the Bible, Thomas says, “The novels I read…contained an idealization of truth. In real life, the truths are still there, but they are never quite so clear.” As I read those words, I pondered what truths Mr. Boyczuk was attempting to idealize within this novel. Thomas, as both protagonist and narrator, is witness to a world filled with murder, corruption, impiety, and the reduction of science to Jesuit oral history. Of course, truth is a tricky thing, particularly in a novel which seems to take pleasure in wholesale subversion.

In some ways, The Book of Thomas puts me in mind of another CZP book, James Marshall’s Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies. If the trajectory of these books were graphed on to a Cartesian plane, they would likely emerge as parallel lines albeit with a vast distance between them. Boyzcuk modifies the Aristotelian model of the universe to create a “planet” of many concentric spheres as a setting for his story – Hell being the innermost sphere and Heaven the outermost. He then installs the Catholic Church as the governing power of this purportedly pious but ultimately decadent and decaying world. And just so the reader knows Mr. Boyzcuk is serious in his deconstruction/appropriation, pederasty, persecution, and rape abound in the book’s first chapters – all of which can be blamed squarely on the various institutions of Catholicism. Despite this, the novel rarely preaches. Thomas, through his perfect memory, is a fair narrator. He recognizes is own sins as readily as he does those of others. And though it may seem like The Book of Thomas is subversion for its own sake, its methodology quickly becomes a mechanism for approaching the heroic epic without placing the narrative inside an idealized world of objective good and evil.

Though gifted with characteristics and history suitable to a heroic character, guilt, shame, and obligation inform Thomas’ quest. In this Thomas knows he will likely never find absolution for his misdeeds. Despite this knowledge, and a form of ironic self-flagellation which would put the best Greek poet to shame, Thomas embraces the hero’s journey. His voyage creates a delightful contrast in the duality of man as a creature of equal parts free will and determinism.

Further shading the non-idealized epic tradition is Boyczuk’s treatment of the characters essential to Thomas’ world. Clever nomenclature alludes to their roles within the story: Kite, Thomas’ shield, who like all shields will eventually break; Ali, the leader, who drives Thomas while himself being led by other powers; Meussin, the Pope’s illegitimate daughter, who embodies both sin and truth in equal measures. None of these characters have simple motivations or a trope driven nature which might lend to quick critical dissection. There’s a brilliant ambiguity to the players, which returns to Thomas’ meta discussion on novels and life; wherein literature streamlines the divergent demands of readers and writers into digestible packages. Only in this novel, the complexities of life and people are fully imposed upon the heroic journey.

The novel’s pace is another element contributing to its nature as a contemporary subversion of the epic. Much of the volume is bound up in Thomas’ journey from a lower sphere to Heaven. While there are many questions and conflicts within this sojourn, a grand sense of narrative only emerges in the final pages of the book. So yes, there is a lot of world building in The Book of Thomas, but it is a gorgeous world to behold. The Spheres of the Apostles are byzantine, flawed, and utterly beautiful. In his dialogue and narration alike, Boyczuk’s remarkable use of language hangs on the border of anachronism, serving to remove the reader from our world and fixing them upon the firmament of a sphere.

There is one possible point of contention I would deal with before wrapping up the review. To do so constitutes a very light spoiler; I apologize in advance. Still, I feel it necessary to discuss a particular rape scene within the novel. My first impression of this scene was that it was too matter of fact. It felt like a pulled punch for the sake of narrative convenience. Each time the story returned to the rape as a formative event within Thomas’ journey, I felt it to be a cop out which cheapened both of the involved characters. About 150 pages later (a guess as I read the book on my kindle) the book reveals certain details that, to my mind, wholly justified why this rape scene had to happen. Indeed the revelation drove home just how little personal agency there is within both a theocracy and Boyczuk’s preternatural world. So to those who approach this scene with some reservation, have faith that it is essential to the art of the story.

In a novel that dedicates so much of its efforts to framing a larger tale, the simplest benchmark for success is a reader’s desire to keep reading after the last page. To Robert Boyczuk I now say, “I want more.” The Book of Thomas’ first volume is as layered as the world in which it is set. A subtext of critical skepticism juxtaposed with deist belief in a higher power underpins a story which shamelessly and unrepentantly flirts with multiple genres. Ultimately this combination of opposing thematic forces produces a novel which frees the hero’s journey from idealism and infallibility, offering something that is, perhaps, closer to the Truth of those called to greatness.

The Book of Thomas, Volume 1: Heaven by Robert Boyczuk.

Published by ChiZine Publications.


Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Post #400 and The Best of 2012

By
Adam Shaftoe
– December 17, 2012Posted in: Game Reviews, Lit Reviews, Movie Reviews, TV Reviews, Web Series Reviews

400 posts. Isn’t that something? It seems like only two and a half years ago I was drinking scotch and thinking, “I should start a review website. Nobody in the history of the internet has ever done one of those before.”

Of course, I couldn’t have done it on my own. Along the way I’ve had the pleasure of hosting guest posts from Matt Moore, Rollen Lee, K.W. Ramsey, and Matt Leaver. During that time we must have been doing something right because this year’s numbers doubled to roughly 5500 unique visitors per month. Granted those aren’t Scalzi or Wheaton numbers, but whatever, I’ll get there, and then Middle Earth shall feel my wrath…or there will be cake – either or, really.

So given the auspicious number of this post, and the fact that I’m on vacation starting next week, today seems an ideal time to do my best in genre of 2012.

Best Big Budget Video Game

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis Games

Rebooting Julian Gollop’s classic 1994 turn based strategy game, X-Com: UFO Defence was a gutsy move on the part of Firaxis and 2K Games. On the one hand, anybody old enough to remember the source material is no longer part of the gaming industry’s target audience. Moreover, nobody makes turn based strategy games in a market dominated by first/third person shooters and sports titles. Yet Firaxis managed to pull it off. They streamlined classic X-Com’s clunky features, maintained the suspense and often punishing difficulty, and ultimately delivered an experience which pairs action with player driven narrative.

Best Indie Game

FTL, Subset Games

FTL is a rogue-like starship simulator. Similar to XCOM, FTL features persistent consequences and permanent death. Unlike XCOM, a single game of FTL only takes about two hours from start to finish. During that time players will command a starship on a mission to save the Federation from a looming rebellion. FTL puts a premium on resource management and strategy driven starship combat. Though the game’s objective always remains the same, no two playthroughs will ever be the same. Much of this replay factor can be attributed to FTL’s procedurally generated galaxy, variety of ships to command, and a huge pool of random events. Simple, elegant, and challenging in extremis FTL is not a title to be missed.

Best Novel

Rasputin’s Bastards, David Nickle

I’m almost certain the book isn’t an attempt on the part of ChiZine Publications and author David Nickle to subconsciously program an army of sleeper agents. That said, there are times when Rasputin’s Bastards feels like a twenty-first century answer to Catch-22. Both books are complex, revel in asynchronous storytelling, and left this reader eager to reread if only to mine for details, subtexts, and plot threads missed on a first read through. The novel also boasts a moral ambiguity in its characters which defies an easy D&D style alignment. Despite their various plans and machinations, some of which still don’t quite make sense to me, a reader can walk away from the book with a real sense of empathy for all the players involved. The Cold War might have been a lot of things, but before David Nickle’s treatment I don’t know if it has ever been quite so metaphysical.

Best Movie

Dredd

Yeah that’s right, I said Dredd. The Avengers has got enough people kissing its billion dollar ass. Dredd was the movie that nobody, save for dedicated weirdoes like yours truly, ever wanted. Despite utterly under performing at the box office, Dredd remains an accessible action movie after the hard “R” rated fashion of Die Hard. It skillfully brings an uninitiated viewer into the entropy of Mega City One, while remaining true enough to the source material to appease a veteran audience. As ever with Judge Joe Dredd, the writing remains a serious study on urban crime and civil liberties as seen through a set of extraordinary circumstances. Karl Urban as Dredd offers a unique sort of black comedy amid the action. Lena Headey delivers a brilliant performance as a cold calculating drug lord. While one special effect does get used a bit much, viewers can take solace in the fact that Dredd doesn’t spend fifteen minutes fixing an engine.

Best TV

NB: Live action genre TV sucked the devil’s ass in 2012. It should be telling that my only candidates for this category were animated series.

TRON: Uprising

Would that the story of TRON: Uprising was told in TRON: Legacy fans might have got the sequel they deserved. Despite the Disney branding, Uprising frames the back story of Legacy as a narrative of insurgency within the Grid. It’s poignant in ways that The Clone Wars can be when exploring stories involving the clone troopers and not their Jedi generals. At some point, we know Tron, voiced magnificently by Bruce Boxleitner, is going to end up as Rinzler, CLU’s mindless growling stooge. This foreknowledge makes his struggle against General Tessler, voiced with style by Lance Henriksen, and his search for redemption in training Beck (Elijah Wood) as the new Tron all the more bitter sweet. Meanwhile the writers are free to derezz and destroy to their heart’s content as the series’ cast, save for Tron, are external to the world of Legacy.

Best Web Series

Job Hunters

This is another tough call. Husbands remains one of the funniest things on the internet. Though I only recently discovered Clutch, it’s quickly become one of the most powerful things I’ve seen online. But where those shows entered their second season in 2012, Job Hunters debuted this year. I didn’t know what to expect in a series which described itself as a “dystopian roommate comedy”. Truth be told, I was bracing for terrible. Instead, I saw a series which tapped into the frustration of college graduates entering an outsourced and depressed job market. The series takes job hunting quite literally where grads become gladiators who fight for a position with the corporations of the world. Drawing inspiration from Rollerball as much as it does The Hunger Games, Job Hunters is looks great, sounds as good as any mainstream production, and uses both comedy and violence to explore a social phenomenon.

There we have it, my best of 2012 in the 400th post.

My deepest thanks to everybody who continues to read and support this website. Your comments, facebook likes, and retweets are as good as gold to me. Until the day when somebody starts paying me to write for a living, approbation and kudos are my bread and butter.

So feel free to follow me on twitter by clicking the link at the top of this page and/or hitting like on the Page of Reviews’ facebook page.


Tags: , , , , , , ,
Older Entries