[Review: Thin Air]

Mars - a planet of factions. There are the Western and Chinese settlements, the corporations, the criminal underworld, the political groupings, the various military, police or security organizations... and in the middle of it all is Earthman Hakan Veil, once a unique kind of spaceship security officer, now stranded on Mars, trying to live day to day and find a way to get back to Earth. But someone with Veil's abilities can't stay hidden for ever.

Thin Air is a novel by Richard Morgan. It's unrelated to the Altered Carbon series, and takes place in the same setting as Thirteen (originally published under the title "Black Man") - a few centuries into the future, the Solar System explored and settled, genetic engineering is commonplace, but despite this humans are still as quarrelsome and pugnatious as ever, and boy bands are still a thing.

Veil was engineered from early childhood to be the ultimate deterrent on a spaceship - a hibernating one-man army to be thawed out as a last resort in the event of piracy or mutiny. His abilities come at a high cost - he's a hibernoid, only able to remain awake for nine months before he must find a hibernation chamber, and while "running hot" he has little control over his aggression and lust. Veil is also a relic - the hibernoids have been consigned to history, at least officially. 

Veil's story arc and character are also pleasantly retro. He's the wounded, traumatized tough ex-soldier a la Cormoran Strike and any number of ex-military private investigators, or the special agent with superhuman abilities a la James Bond. The novel reads like a Bond film, with plenty of supervillains, gadgets and femmes fatale to enjoy. At least in Veil's case his ability to handle weapons, vehicles and people is explained by his genetic engineering and AI enhancements - the least credible aspect of the Bond canon is the idea of a competent British civil servant.

They're made out of meat! [Review: Tender Is The Flesh]

The spread of a deadly virus leads to the elimination of livestock and animals in general - and to the creeping legalization of cannibalism and a future in which humans are farmed, bred and slaughtered for meat on an industrial scale.

Tender Is The Flesh (Cadaver Exquisito) is a dystopian novel by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica. It's told from the viewpoint of Marcos, a senior manager in the "special meat" industry with a role in every stage of the lives of the "heads." Motivated by a need to pay for his father's nursing home and recoiling from his own tragedies and the breakdown of his marriage, Marcos embodies the double-think of the time, taking pride in his expertise and business success while still  aware that he is participating in an atrocity.

There are plenty of bleak, horrific novels in the dystopia genre - not least the torture-heavy 1984 and the misogynistic violence of The Handmaid's Tale or A Walk To The End Of The World. I may have become a little desensitized to literary violence but I rarely read a book that truly horrifies me - Tender Is The Flesh is a rare example of writing that stopped me in my tracks several times, even though I was still compelled to finish reading it. 

It's clear that Bazterrica has far too much time on her hands and has spent much of it figuring out just how modern intensive livestock farming could be modified to farm humans, and all the ways that those on the right side of the electric fences might maintain the sense of denial, from the euphemisms such as "heads" and "special meat" to the scientific "evidence" presented against vegetable diets, to the legal structures protecting and regulating the process, to the removal of vocal cords from farmed humans to prevent them screaming or communicating. The detailed descriptions are shocking, particularly the chapter about 30% of the way through the novel where two job applicants are taken on a tour of the slaughterhouse. And there's still time for interesting subplots - the inhabitants of an abandoned zoo, and the implications that fear of infected bird droppings might be a conspiracy promoted by the umbrella industry.

There's an obvious between-the-lines link to ethical veganism - for those of us who eat meat, are we acting on good evidence that, say, cows are not conscious beings, or are we taking that view in order to make ourselves feel better? Is it our IQ that distinguishes us from the animals - and if so would it be OK to eat a human with lower IQ than a cow?* And what of the Ameglian Major Cow, served at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe and other fine intergalactic establishments - an artificially created, sentient creature genetically programmed to offer itself up to be eaten on an entirely voluntary, consensual basis. Is that OK?**

But this novel speaks to human-on-human mistreatment too - it's about how humans dehumanize other humans in order to justify tribalism, slavery, racism, misogyny, genocide and so on, and how we give ourselves license to act in this way.

Humanity is broken in this novel - symbolised by Marcos' father, a livestock farmer whose dementia was apparently brought on following the "Transition" to human meat. Marcos and many of his generation are fully aware of the identity of "human meat" - it's an unspoken universal truth rather than a Soylent Green mystery - and they are living with the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of treating the "heads" as both human and inhuman, in turn distorting their humanity and morality. Some go for complete "We don't eat people in this house" denial, while others embrace the Transition, such as the game hunters who are equally happy aiming at purpose-bred humans or celebrities gambling their debts on a life-or-death run, or the Scavengers who kill and eat at any opportunity. Marcos is given a chance of a kind of redemption - an opportunity to re-integrate his divided world; the actual outcome reflects just how broken we all are.

*No.
**Still no.

Abyss Seeing You [Review: The Abyss Beyond Dreams]

Nigel Sheldon, the long-lived engineer responsible for the technology of the interstellar Commonwealth, is dispatched on a mission to the Void, a giant black hole-like artefact that is expanding and may threaten the galaxy. With the help of the alien Raiel he enters the void seeking the planet Querencia, but instead finds himself on a different planet Bienvenido where the descendants of a starship previously drawn into the Void have fought for thousands of years against the sinister Fallers.

As you can see it's hard to describe The Abyss Beyond Dreams in short sentences. This is a Peter F. Hamilton novel and as such it's of epic proportions - I can barely lift my Kindle. A novel of this length is a challenge to write or to read - it cannot be indulgent. There must be depth and complexity that justify the length, but it must maintain quality and the relationship with the reader throughout.

The Abyss rises to this challenge through the story of Bienvenido which is told through several viewpoints - the original colonists, their descendants thousands of years later, and Nigel Sheldon and his allies. It's a story of individuals living through and driving societal change in a time of revolution - not unlike Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables. There are a few differences - Hugo dwells less on the flesh-eating alien mimics, for instance, but there are a lot of common themes too. I don't know if the endings are similar as reading Les Miserables proved to be like swimming through the overlong backstory for treacle. I can't help thinking that that novel would be much better if 95% of the plot were removed and the remaining few words were set to music... but I digress.

The plot of The Abyss is sufficiently complex and multi-layered. At its centre is a revolution which is not what it seems. The constant enemy, the Fallers, are also a good horror creation with their own mystery, although I did wonder why they only appear to have started their invasion when the humans arrived - by rights they should have already have established themselves and been ready with a welcoming party. Sheldon is an interesting character - deeply moral but willing to consider inhuman, terrible acts in order to achieve a greater end, he is the logical product of his long life and his ability to see the bigger picture.

The Abyss is part of a two-novel series set in parallel to the events of the Void Trilogy, many years later than the Commonwealth Saga novels. I previously reviewed The Dreaming Void here and my thoughts about novel length can be found here. These novels are all set in the Commonwealth, a civilisation like Iain M. Banks' Culture in some ways - citizens are biologically and technologically enhanced, interstellar travel and artificial intelligence are commonplace and society is organized around a very, very long life expectancy. Unlike the Culture, the Commonwealth is a continuation of Earth history and is primarily human-led. I enjoyed this return to the universe of the Commonwealth and look forward to the sequel Night Without Stars.

First Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes [Review: Robopocalypse]

I like humans. I like robots. But which is best? There's only one way to find out... A series of apparently accidental and unconnected deaths leads to the discovery that the robot revolution has already begun in earnest, and surviving humans must flee the cities that have become deathtraps as their appliances turn against them.

In "Robopocalypse" Daniel H. Wilson tells the story of a failed robotic war of independence from a position of robotics expertise - but this is not a dry textbook or theoretical AI journal article. The structure of the novel is also unusual. Clearly we are outsmarted and generally outclassed by our robot opponents, yet it is made clear from the start that the war is over and the humans have won. The story is told from multiple human viewpoints as a surviving A.I. researches critical events in the war and tries to understand humanity.

I found the early stages of the war most original and most horrifying - robotic cleaners and automated elevators conspire to kill the inhabitants of tower blocks, an ice-cream making machine turns on its owners, while packs of self-driving cars roam the streets hunting humans as prey. It's a little less original later as Terminator-style military drones join the fray but the plot remains interesting, and while it appears that the ending has been given away from the start, the actual endpoint is a little more complex and less predictable.

Pitch Black [Review: Daughter Of Eden]

Daughter Of Eden completes Chris Beckett's trilogy about the tribe of humans descended from two stranded astronauts on the alien world of Eden. Beginning partway through the events of Mother Of Eden, this novel is narrated entirely by Starlight's childhood friend Angie. Whereas Starlight is assertive and physically beautiful, two characteristics that seem to have shaped her entire life, Angie is a batface - she has a severe form of harelip, one of the recurrent defects that result from Eden's tiny gene pool. Even amongst the likeable Jeffsfolk she is treated differently from others and must work harder to win affection or respect. As a result she accepts the offer to travel with a religious woman who claims to hear the voice of Mother Gela. Meanwhile the tension between the Johnfolk and Davidfolk is escalating towards an inevitable confrontation - when suddenly, a mysterious light appears in the sky above the circle of stones that marked the original landing site.

The Eden trilogy is full of powerful ideas about the nature of civilization, humanity and religion. It begins as a version of the Old Testament that grows from a human origin, and deals with themes such as morality and the introduction of killing into the world. Here the people of Eden finally come face to face with the gods of their religion - but what happens if your gods turn out to be human? This is unlikely to end well.

This final book was just as compelling and difficult to put down as Dark Eden and Mother Of Eden, although the story structure is slightly harder to follow - instead of sequential accounts from different characters, the narrative jumps backward and forward between different times in Angie's life. The book ties up loose ends everywhere, filling in the gaps in the colonists' mythology and constantly fascinating the reader with even more details of the indigenous life
of Eden.

In addition to the three novels of the trilogy, the story of the founders Angela and Tommy is told in the short story "Dark Eden" which is published in "The Turing Test", an anthology of Chris Beckett's short stories.

The Dark Is Rising [Review: Mother of Eden]

Several generations after John Redlantern and his followers left the Circle to find new places to live, John's own story has become part of the accumulating mythology of Eden, and the colony has become divided into two main tribes - the adventurous Johnfolk who and the conservative Davidfolk who still wait by the circle of stones for the promised return of the Landing Veekle and the godlike figure of Angela or Mother Gela.

The second of Chris Beckett's trilogy of novels set on Eden focusses on Starlight Brooking, a woman of a smaller tribe descended from John Redlantern's clawfoot ally Jeff. Like Jeff, Starlight and her tribe are pacifists with a tradition of mindful meditation, living on a small island to avoid the skirmishes between Johnfolk and Davidfolk and building boats to trade with the mainland. However on one visit Starlight encounters Greenstone, the son of the leader of the Johnfolk, and travels back with him to become his bride.

The society of Eden has changed in ways foreshadowed by the events of the first novel. Forms of money are appearing. The Johnfolk have discovered metal and moved forward into a bronze age with better weapons and armour, along with other discoveries such as doors and houses, servants and slaves and the division into "big" and "little" people. As the handed-down stories of Earth become cloudier the religion that has formed around Angela has become stronger, and the societies of both Johnfolk and Davidfolk have shifted towards male domination and rule of the strongest. Starlight's new family are powerful but must constantly scheme to remain in control, knowing that they will be killed by their rivals if they fail. Meanwhile women are persecuted for spreading the Secret Story, advice supposedly passed down by Mother Gela to her female children teaching them about equality and the dangers of men who "believe the story is all about them." Eden is darker than ever and this novel introduces themes of power and sexual politics on a personal and societal level, while continuing to dissect the darker side of religion.

I found both Dark Eden and Mother of Eden to be compelling and addictive reads. The writing is very high quality and is capable of shocking the reader at times - punches are not pulled. Starlight's experiences with the Johnfolk are reminiscent of A Song Of Ice And Fire, and the writing style is similar in some ways, particularly the chapters narrated by different characters. while the setting of Eden reminded me of the Human Beings of Stephen Baxter's Flux, another tribe clinging on to their sense of humanity in an environment utterly different from Earth.

Darkness Falls [Review: Dark Eden]

The people of Eden live in simple shelters surrounding a circle of stones where, only five generations earlier, their ancestors arrived from Earth in a stolen starship. The entire tribe is descended from two Earth astronauts - Tommy and Angela - who remained behind on the planet while the other three attempted to return, according to the True Story re-enacted by the children every year. The colonists are able to eat many of the local lifeforms but they are living in a small pocket of warmth and life within a crater, surrounded by cold mountain walls, and as more children are born the food is already becoming scarce.

Dark Eden is the first of Chris Beckett's trilogy set on the sunless world of Eden, located across the galaxy and reachable only by a physics-defying starship that took a generation to build. While many characters are introduced, the novel centres on John Redlantern, a restless young man who chooses to leave the Circle to seek new sources of food, defying the wisdom of the elders who insist on living within reach of the landing site so that they can be found when rescue comes. 

The novel explores the way that historical events can grow into mythology or religion, as well as the inevitable battles between change and the status quo, and the difficulty in keeping to a well-intentioned moral system. In the process two worlds are created in deep convincing detail - the alien ecosystem of Eden, with bioluminous lifeforms all dependent on the "trees" that constantly pump up heat from the core of the planet; and the society of the humans with their Earth beliefs, their simple morals, child-like language and genetics - due to the small and incestuous gene-pool, genetic defects such as "batfaces" (cleft palate) and "clawfeet" recur in each generation. The title is apt - this is truly a dark vision of a desperate society.

Harry Potter And The Media Convergence Phenomenon [Spoiler-Free Review: Cursed Child]

This is a review of the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, read as a novel. I haven't got tickets to see it on stage and I'd have to kill far too many people to even get to stand outside the theatre. I was going to use my Cloak of Invisibility to get in, but I've put it down somewhere...

This is also a SPOILER-FREE review. This means I'm not going to make the mistake of telling you what happens to Dobby this time.

So first of all, Cursed Child is a perfectly enjoyable read. It's accessible as a play script, in fact after the first few pages you can easily forget and think of it as a story written in idiosyncratic style. To be fair it's more of a novella than a novel, but will still keep you occupied for the duration of a short internal flight. Using some clever plot devices, the plot involves both familiar and new characters, there's a lot of fun, some surprises and, happily, some new discoveries about the characters and the Potterverse. The story arc is satisfying, the ending is a little less so.

Cursed Child also manages to retain that essential J.K. Rowlinguality, even though Rowling only co-wrote the story and did not write the script. Characters are sympathetic, do have more than one aspect to their personality, and do develop during the events of the play. Dialogue is two thirds genius to one third cornfield. I do miss the internal voices that run through all Rowling's actual novels - only used here in very limited ways.

CC does however suffer from being a play script, and in particular a play script that wants to be something else. It's a Media Identity Disorder if you like. CC owes its inspiration not so much to the original Harry Potter novels but to the films. It makes sense that the writers would know that their play will be compared to the films, or perhaps they have ambitions towards a film conversion. It's also true that media are converging - films, TV shows, plays, books, audiobooks, comics, games etc. are all becoming more or less the same thing, and in a world where you can buy Harry Potter wool, a play script that wants to be a film script, looks like a novel and reads like a short story isn't so far fetched.

Either way, CC features ultra-short scenes, with major location changes every few minutes, much action, and many magical effects. None of this needs to make it a bad play, but I suspect it may lose some of the intimacy that comes from the best-written theatrical plays. I would still be curious to see it, if I can find where I put my Cloak, and I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Lost Vikings [Review: Dragonfly]

Greeta is a Northlander, a Viking living amongst Native Americans. The Shining Star Nation has welcomed Greeta and her people into their midst but acceptance is not universal, and suspicions and superstitions remain. Without warning, Greeta is rejected by her tribe and discovers that her own family has concealed an important truth about her identity.

Dragonfly by Resa Nelson is part alternate history and part magical fantasy, drawing on the folklore of both populations. Within the unusual setting, Greeta's story is about self-discovery and growing up in many senses - becoming an adult woman, discovering her past and identity, and making choices about who to trust and who to love.

This novel gripped me from about the third chapter onwards right through to the end and I would highly recommend it. Dragonfly is the start of a second trilogy in this setting (the three Dragonslayer novels come first) however I had not read these novels so I didn't see the twists coming and I particularly enjoyed this aspect - the secrets and reveals are handled extremely well throughout. I also thought the descriptions of the various tribes were credible and there was a real sense of tension between the two cultures.

You can find out more about Dragonfly and Resa Nelson's other books on her website here.

When The Cat's Away [Review: Gone]

I previously reviewed The Speed Of Dark, Elizabeth Moon's near-future novel about adults with autism, here. As this week is World Autism Awareness Week I've chosen to review another novel featuring a character with autism: Gone by Michael Grant.

Suddenly and without warning or special effects of any kind, all the adults and over-15s living in Sam Temple's town Perdido Beach have disappeared. A mysterious barrier has also appeared around the town so no-one can leave or contact the outside world in any way. And there's more: Sam, and some of the other children have developed a range of superpowers, apparently before the disappearance.

Gone is the first book in Michael Grant's popular series of novels for young adults, set in a present-day world without adults. While the novel explores this scenario, introduces Sam and his companions and other less likeable children, and sets up a long list of mysteries to be revealed later in the series, it also explores some satisfyingly heavy themes. It's been written into international law that all YA fiction must be about social inequality, and Gone is no exception, but as it's set in the present day, the social tensions are perfectly familiar: attitudes towards immigrants, religious intolerance and the gap between rich and poor parts of town, rather than futuristic factions or districts.

Grant is a confident writer, able to tackle real-world subjects that some authors seem to avoid or allegorize: including religious tension and also discrimination over mental illness. A minor character is a teenager with bulimia, and Sam's allies include Astrid and her young brother Pete who is portrayed as severely autistic - either unable or unwilling to communicate most of the time and severely distressed by raised voices or other disturbances. There's a strong protective bond between Pete and Astrid, and without too much infodumping Astrid is still able to communicate the nature of autism to the others (and to the reader.)

The scenario is not particularly original: superficial elements may have been "borrowed" from Stephen King's Under The Dome and the many, many teenage-superpower books and films. It succeeds in mixing these elements to create something that feels fresh, and is willing to take the reader into a fairly dark place - it would be fair to describe Gone as a re-imagined Lord Of The Flies. It's a gripping read that also has something meaningful to say.

Hi Honey, I'm Home [Review: The Bees]

Flora 717 is born to a life of drudgery as a sanitation worker, the lowest caste in a walled, fascist Queendom where only a lucky few foragers and drones get to see the outside world. She's an outsider due to her abilities - she can literally talk, unlike the rest of her caste, she is intelligent and questioning, and she has ideas above her station - and if the guards or the Fertility Police don't stop her, she just might be the cause of a revolution one day. Yes, this is every YA dystopian novel scenario ever, rolled into one book - but Flora 717 is a bee, and just for once the scenario actually makes sense.

Laline Paull's novel follows in a great tradition of anthropomorphization - Animal Farm, Watership Down. There are one or two flights of fancy - the chambers of the beehive have doors and scent-coded floor panels, the police have visors and gauntlets, and the bees have a jet engine in their abdomen. This last might be a reference to the old idea of scientists being convinced that bees could not fly - but as we all know, the 2005 Altshuler study (abstract here) put that one to rest. I mean, it's always seemed obvious to me that unsteady forces during stroke reversal would make a large contribution to net upward force during hovering, but then what do I know? I'm just a drone...

This book can be enjoyed twice - first by reading it and then by fact-checking it. With the exception of the doors and the jet engines, it was a lot of fun discovering that almost every concept in the plot is factually accurate with very little embroidery. Take the wide range of worker castes and activities - or the scent produced by a Queen which keeps the entire hive loyal - or the lazy drone lifestyle - or the winter cluster - or the not-so-royal behaviour of newly hatched Princesses - or even Flora 717's secret, it's all there in the real-life complexity of honey bee society.

Campaign For A Worse Tomorrow

So I've read The Hunger Games, Divergent, Delirium, Wool, Inside Out, The Bone Season, and recently Laline Paull's novel "The Bees." For the most part I've enjoyed them - but how do they stack up against the work of classic dystopian writers such as George Orwell or Suzy McKee Charnas?

What's not missing is some quality writing, with strong characters and intense settings. I think the opposite is true, this is a real strength of the genre right now and it's very clear , if only from the sales figures, that these books have been ensnaring and captivating new readers. So what's missing?

1. Originality While there are a lot of original concepts in all of the above books, there are also a lot of unoriginal ones: like the walled city, the fascist police, the rigid caste system, the unfair division of wealth, the outcast hero and of course the love affair that spans all boundaries. It all makes a good literary drinking game to play at your book group, but the result is a kind of create-a-dystopian-society-by-the-numbers. As if to prove the point, random YA dystopia generators have sprung up here and here.

It's a kind of laziness - save time developing your own backstory by referring to someone else's. To be fair it's not unique to this genre at all, it's something that occurs throughout literature. The result is a backstory that doesn't feel credible and doesn't connect to the real world. An exception is "The Bees" where the walled hive and the caste system make sense as the main characters are bees.

2. Social Commentary George Orwell's "1984" was driven by the development of Communism into a totalitarian state, and the fear that this could be the future of the world. "A Walk To The End Of The World" by Suzy Mckee Charnas is a feminist novel taking male oppression to a seriously extreme conclusion. While the new-ish wave does seem to care about class or wealth inequalities, these feel like easy targets but there's no real attempt to criticise or satirise present-day countries, societies, governments or political trends.

3. Hardcore suffering Kurt Vonnegut's famous advice to writers (summarised here) includes the following gem: "Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them, in order that the reader may see what they are made of." I'm not saying Katniss and the others don't suffer at all. But in all honesty I don't think she, Flora 717 or any of the new-wave heroes would last very long in Room 101.

4. Some curious omissions The Panem society, the Divergent scenario and many of the above settings, for all their fascist trappings, are surprisingly feminist. It's as if the overlords took a few years out of their plan to conquer and enslave the poor, in order to achieve total gender equality, apparently with minimum effort. Well done, dystopian leaders! Once again, "The Bees" is a notable exception.

So I propose to write a dystopia about a teenage girl growing up in a society where everyone is forced to read dystopian fiction from birth, who starts to suspect that, beyond the mysterious wall of dystopian books there might be some other mysterious reality, and who must pluck up the courage to lead a revolution so that her kin can enjoy (for example) Scandinavian detective novels. Cheers...

Where The Underworld Can Meet The Elite [Review: Mostly Harmless]

Angel Rose: pilot, interstellar trader and disappointment to her parents. Desperate to pay her debts, escape her mother's somewhat unhelpful matchmaking efforts, and get away from her drab home planet of Slough, she agrees to ship a cargo of gold across a pirate-infested region of space. It's fair to say her mission doesn't entirely go to plan and Angel is about to learn some important lessons about survival, join the quest for an ancient alien artefact, and make some new friends - not necessarily friends that would meet her parents' approval.

Mostly Harmless is a novel set in the Elite universe, written by Kate Russell. Although the author is an accomplished technology journalist and writer, this is her first novel but it's confidently written, packed with interesting characters, and really brings out the danger and paranoia of the Elite setting, while throwing in plenty of humour - as the title might suggest, there's a hint of Douglas Adams in the writing style. Also, as another reviewer pointed out there are three strong women in pivotal roles - is there a Bechdel test for novels?

This novel was supported by a Kickstarter campaign and was part of the meta-funding campaign for the Elite: Dangerous game which has just been released as a beta. Kate's campaign rewards included the opportunity to name a character in the novel who would be guaranteed a gory, painful death. Let's just say the book delivers on this front too.

The end result is an enjoyable and satisfying space opera - and perhaps a promising start to a fiction-writing career.

A Tuf Act To Follow [Review: Tuf Voyaging]

Five mercenary treasure hunters are on the trail of a real find - a massive ancient starship packed with bioweaponry and genetic secrets. They need a ride willing to keep his mouth shut, so they turn to the eccentric, cat-loving captain Haviland Tuf.

Tuf Voyaging is a novel, or more accurately, a series of novellas detailing the adventures of Tuf as he styles himself an Ecological Engineer, travelling the galaxy with his newly-acquired seedship and offering its services for a sharply-negotiated price. It's written by some upstart fantasy novelist called George R.R. something who you've probably never heard of.

Tuf is a curious character - a hermit who prefers feline to human company, smarter, greedier and more devious yet also more honest and honourable than most of his fellow humans. His personality contains the genetic seeds of some of George R.R.'s other characters - in my mind he appears as Varys, perhaps due to the intelligence and the curious interweaving of deviousness and honour, but he also has Ned Stark's determination and is capable of breaking one of his beloved cats' necks as a mercy when it becomes infected.

The stories presented here are fun and inventive. They're also well thought out, although somewhat over-moralistic, not unlike much Golden Age sci-fi. The central theme is power and its' many abuses, something that crops up once or twice in Game Of Thrones too.

Horrible Histories [Review: A Hall Of Wolves]

I've been on a literary medieval epic bender recently. At one point I even got some of the books confused but I think I've sorted it out now.

So to summarise: Thomas Starkwell is a young noble who rises to power through his allegiance to Archsepton Thomas Cranwell, eventually becoming the Hand of King Robert VIII, but must face up to his dangerous rival Queen Cersanne Boleynnister. Meanwhile across the seas, Janaeris Seyborn hatches her own plan to take the throne.

Hilary R.R. Mantel's fantasy world is vivid and complex, sometimes more convincing and sometimes less. I can vouch for the dragon biology which is pretty accurate, and of course the vicious winters that last for years or decades will be familiar to British peasants of any age. On the other hand Mantel seems a little too fond of graphic beheadings, and the idea of a King who would overturn a religion and risk triggering both civil and international wars just for a mistress who is playing hard to get seems a little far-fetched.

The Young Adult Science Fiction Drinking Game

The protagonist is an adolescent or young adult woman (drink) who lives in a walled city state (drink). All decisions are made by a council of elders (drink), and a rigid and extreme two-tier caste system (drink) is enforced by fascist police (drink). The protagonist is an outsider from the lower caste (drink) who feels insecure (drink) and alienated from her peers (drink) but is insanely loyal to them (drink). She also has an extremely rare skill or innate talent such as a sense of direction (drink) and may have some secret connection to the upper caste (drink).

Our protagonist is sent on a voyage of discovery into upper-caste territory (drink) where she discovers that there might be traitors amongst the lower caste (drink) and also meets a member of the upper-caste who is cute (drink). The meeting is accidental and there is clumsiness (drink). This challenges her stereotypes about rich people (drink) but they both have to learn to trust each other (drink).

Back in lower caste territory the protagonist must rally support from people who previously hated her (drink) prove to them that upper-caste people are still human and can be trusted (drink) and lead a revolution (drink) in which both castes unite to overthrow the ruling council and/or discover the secret beyond the walls (drink only if both apply) – only then can she truly relax and allow herself to be clumsy in a cute way with her upper-caste partner (drink).

Logan's Light Morning Stroll [Review: The Unit]

The Unit is a Swedish novel by Ninni Holmqvist. Like Never Let Me Go, it’s about a group of people detained legally by the state for organ donation and medical research, but who are also aware of, and to some extent, accepting of their fate. So The Unit is not science fiction – at least to start with. In this case it is the over 50s rather than cloned schoolchildren who are detained, and there is a value judgement – they are deemed a burden on society if they haven’t had children by this time, and are unworthy of protection for any other reason: their only other choice is suicide which seems a little wasteful.

The story is told by Dorrit Weger who was brought up to be independent – not to become dependent on any man, not to derail her career plans with childbirth. She reaches age 50 with very little to show for it. Meanwhile, her country has been sleepwalking into a very dark place, and financial and political pressures are making unthinkable solutions thinkable.

The Unit has several themes. It’s about the way we view the elderly: creating a sort of sinister care home with an opt-in organ donation scheme, and institutionalising the way that elderly people can be abandoned by their families and left to die or to be abused, their lives unvalued.

There’s also a strange challenge to feminist ideas – it seems that Dorrit would have been fine if only she had found a man to love her and father her children. Instead the silly woman put her career and independence first, running the risk of being left on the shelf. Misguided? Perhaps.

However the strongest message is the call to political activism. Dorrit and her generation have been apathic, and have completely missed gradual but relentless societal changes. Even when arriving in the Unit Dorrit remains stoic and non-science-fictional about the whole thing, and ultimately it is selfishness, plus an unlikely change in her personal circumstances, that “activates” her. Like Aldous Huxley, this author wants her readers to wake up and take action to avert a dystopian future, and it’s hard to argue with that.

Absolute Power [Review: Superpowers]

Five college flatmates suddenly develop a range of superpowers and form a costumed vigilante group. Yes! David Schwartz’ novel Superpowers is yet another attempt to reinvent the superhero mythos – more on that story later. The plot of this novel has a superficial similarity to the film Chronicle and does cover some of the same ground, however the climax - and perhaps the point - is very different.

As the title suggests, the novel is all about the powers themselves. All five superstudents go through similar superpower angst: Mary Beth, gifted with superstrength, breaks everything she touches – her toothbrushes are doomed, as are the ribs of any potential boyfriends. The self-styled All-Stars learn to control their powers, up to a point, but they are isolated and lonely, and their situation divides the group more often than it unites it. Also, having a power will only take you so far – you can read someone’s mind but you might still not be able to influence them. In the end they are hopelessly unprepared for the crisis that is coming.

The cast are pleasingly diverse. That’s SOP for novelists now, ever since Ben Elton daringly wrote his novel Gridlock which features a traffic warden hero. The ethnic diversity is also a pointer to another aspect of the book. The term “superpowers” has another meaning, and the issues faced by the All-Stars can be read as a metaphor for conflicts played out every week on the international stage. The Earth’s most powerful countries routinely have to decide how and when to use their economic or military strength, and whether to intervene in the affairs of other countries – and in the resulting pressure, mistakes can be made.

Mega Black Jack Geary Vs Giant Honor Harrington

John G. Hemry (Jack Campbell) and David Weber are two acclaimed writers of military sci-fi - the Lost Fleet and Honor Harrington series. I reviewed Dauntless here, have worked my way through Fearless, Courageous and Valiant and the rest of the series since, while I read and enjoyed the Honor Harrington novels several years ago. At first glance they seem very similar: both series describe massed battles between large space fleets with naval command structures and ship classes, clashing at relativistic speeds and fighting with missiles and beam weapons. Both feature very charismatic commanders. Both authors share the extraordinary ability to describe a large and complex military action in such a way that even we civvies can follow the action and understand the tactical errors made by the commanders.

David Weber is an avid historian and draws extensively on history for inspiration. The Napoleonic wars are important but in some ways this is a front – there are coded references to other historical eras everywhere if you start to look for them. The ships of the Star Kingdom have impenetrable shields above and below. As a result they fight like sailships, firing broadsides then rolling to fire double-broadsides, crossing the enemy T, forming walls of battle and so on, with only a little adaptation for three-dimensional theatres and gravity wells. It’s contrived but artfully so, and other features such as the Warshawski hyperspace sails uphold the sailship analogy.

The battles and wars in the Honor Harrington series are often recreations of real historical and political dilemmas: the different attitudes towards losing commanders on British and French sides, for example, or the social pressures that might lead a society first to republicanism and then to war.

Hemry’s background is his own Navy service. While his backstories are equally detailed, the links to specific nations or cultures are much less clear - instead the Alliance seems to be a generic feudal culture while their opponents, the Syndicated Worlds, are an equally generic business-led society where ships are commanded by CEOs. Also, where Weber’s writing celebrates history, Hemry’s seems to celebrate physics: in particular relativistic distortion becomes a major theme in every battle. On the other hand the ships of the Lost Fleet are not constrained by seafaring tactics and, once Blackjack Geary manages to stop his captains’ overreliance on the Suicidal Head On Charge, the 3D tactics become fascinating.

By choosing a more generic setting, Hemry’s writing is less about the morality of specific historical wars and more about the morality of war in general: atrocities and murders, treatment of prisoners, the importance of tactics, the politics, and the value of basic discipline, as well as the human cost of war. These issues come up in the Star Kingdom too, of course, just as they do in real life.

But all this distracts from the most important question: who would win in a fight? Fleet to fleet they are well matched: both are strategic and tactical genii, both have, at times, faced overwhelming odds and snatched victories from the jaws of defeat, both have turned rivals amongst their own captains into faithful allies, and importantly both make their own luck by responding quickly and intelligently to situations. They’re both devious as hell too – expect a battle full of feints, diversions, melodramatics and underhand tactics. Geary might have a slight edge simply because he’s used to commanding a much larger fleet. On the other hand, in a face-to-face combat situation, I don’t think Geary would stand a chance against the coup de vitesse.

A Mind Forever Voyaging [Review: A Man Of Parts]

“It would be no more than justice to give his name to the twenty-five years between the ‘nineties and the War. For it was he who largely wove their intellectual texture.” - Odette Keun, 1934

As a writer of fiction, the subject of this quote and David Lodge's "fictional biography" created genres and concepts including alien invasion and the time machine, pushed the scientific romance firmly into the literary mainstream, helped to shape the modern novel and increased the division between popularist and artistic literature - while predicting the role of air supremacy and nuclear weapons long in advance of their development. As a writer of fact his account of the history of the world commanded international respect until it was superceded. As a politician he was present and influential in the early days of the Fabian Society, and as a celebrity and socialite his scandalous love-life and general misbehaviour was never far from the public eye. Oh, and he invented table-top wargaming too.

David Lodge's "fictional biography" of H.G.Wells is in fact a fastidiously-researched and well written account, putting Wells' fictional and non-fictional writing into context: Lodge’s evidence entirely justifies Keun’s statement, while advancing the argument that he could have achieved far more in any of his endeavours, were it not for the consequences of his scandalous personal life. The "fictional" status of the book allows the author to take two liberties: to imagine the internal dialogue as an elderly and physically frail H.G. looks back on his life, and to take the reader behind closed doors imagining the intimate relationships between H.G. and his wives and lovers. H.G. is his own sharpest critic, whether commenting on the racism that surfaces in some of his novels, or dividing between those women he loved and those he did not.

Many of the real-life characters in the novel are brought to life in a very personal way: not only familiar authors such as Henry James and E.Nesbit, but in particular Amy Catherine or "Jane", H.G.'s wife. She emerges as a complex character herself, choosing more than just to tolerate her husband's behaviour, often befriending and supporting his mistresses after he had abandoned them. At times it is possible to see H.G. as a true believer in libertine values but overall, on balance he appears to have been more of an opportunist accepting female attention as a consequence of his fame, and his attitude to women was a long way from any present-day semblance of equality.