Lifeboat continued

A few chapters in and the book continues in the same, tense vein. Two strands of the book - the religious beliefs of the alien race, and the anti-slavery message, both feel cliched to the reader in 2008, although may have been less so at the time of writing. The appearance of the aliens would also fail to pass muster today - green BEMs that are actually green, monstrous and have bug-eyes... The plot however is handled adeptly, making good use of the closed setting, and the backstory is increasingly fleshed out - the slavery/class regime started as a temporary survival plan for an overpopulated Earth.

I wondered whether Harrison would slip an overpopulation subplot in - it was a regular theme in his solo novels e.g. Make Room Make Room, which led by way of a Charlton Heston film with a classic ending, to a scene in the Simpsons (episode: The Itchy and Scratchy Movie) where Homer, several decades into the future, enters a cinema and, on passing the kiosk, exclaims "Mmmmm, soylent green...."

Small picture was borrowed from somewhere on the Internet. It's a good cover, if I get the chance I'll post a better picture.

From Homeworld to Turner

If you're looking for inside gossip on films or games still in production, or secrets of the Lost spin-off (working title "Ah, there you are again - had me worried") you may or may not be disappointed by this column - if so, just type "sci-fi blog" into Google. If you want acerbic, contrary and offensive yet brilliant film reviews read Mutant Popcorn, found in Interzone magazine. Because I have the sci-fi gene deficiency, I am rarely disappointed and will usually find a retrospective justification for enjoying just about any film. I almost never take a strong dislike to anything (but more about "Kate and Leopold" another time.)

I wanted to mention Homeworld, an old PC war game. This was welcomed with seriously good reviews and awards on its release but is now old news. What I wanted to point out was, apart from the simple gameplay and smooth interface, I was awe-struck by the graphics - despite polygon counts and texture densities so low you could run this game with only (only!) an 8-bit graphics card, the game conjured up images of spaceships that could easily fit on the cover of a Golden Age paperback.

Which leads neatly to the topic of cover art: science-fiction readers more than anyone else should avoid judging a book by its cover - basically because the covers are so good. Here's Alien Way, a book I enjoyed greatly while being fully aware of its lack of any merit whatsoever (oh God not another power-crazed misunderstood anti-hero). The cover shows a vast wrecked hulk of a starship, towed by a smaller, sleeker ship. Unusually, the scene actually relates directly to an event early in the book - a wrecked human ship recovered and towed to an alien homeworld.

I don't even know the artist - as in those innocent days the artist didn't even get a mention in the book. The composition reminded me of something, and a few Google searches later I found it - Turner's "Fighting Temeraire" depicting the decomissioning of a sailing ship, towed by a steam-powered tug, symbolizing the end of the Age of Sail and the rise of new technology - this is appropriate given the book's theme of the conflict for supremacy between two intelligent races.

Women and children first!

Just started reading "Lifeboat" by Gordon Dickson and Harry Harrison. I may have to review my opinion of the former writer - first chapter engages the reader effectively, introducing a society where a ruling class expects automatic, hypnotic obedience from the underclass; and setting up a claustrophobic life-raft environment following a disaster. I will send updates from this universe - hopefully it will live up to the promise of the first chapter.