Tag: Speculative Fiction

Blog Topic, Fun Articles, Reading, Video

How Tech Bros Get Sci-Fi Wrong

Recently on the den of inequity and monetised dumpster fires, I posted a tweet.

Text: Those who read spec-fic are doomed to see dystopias turned into tech company ideas.

This idea of how the “big brains” in Silicon Valley seem to miss the point of most speculative fiction has been in my thoughts lately. I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read that have sung the praises of a new tech idea that was clearly ripped straight out of a dystopic novel.

Surely it isn’t just me and every other book nerd who understands that your favourite sci-fi novel was meant to be a warning, not a goal, right?

Well, this video from Wisecrack certainly appears to be on my side.

Wisecrack video: How Tech Bros Get Sci-Fi Wrong.

I think it is clear why tech-bros get sci-fi (and other spec-fic) wrong. The shallow, selfish and egotistical nature of being a Silicon Valley wonk precludes you from fully understanding subtle messages in fiction. You know, subtle messages like AIs will destroy the planet, anarcho-capitalism will destroy the planet, rich/greedy people will destroy the planet, pollution will destroy the planet, etc.

Take Musk’s Neuralink. When it’s not being inhumanely tested on monkeys, there is a lot of buzz around what it could do. Like brain uploading to make you immortal. Like in that sci-fi novel where people became immortal thanks to brain uploading. Which was a novel about how brain uploading was really really bad.

But is that the message that someone like Musk would take away from Altered Carbon? Would he look at that sci-fi dystopia and think “wow, bad, let’s not make brain uploading a thing” or does he look at it and think “wow, that rich guy had a sky palace and got to be super-duper immortal rich, let’s make that brain uploading a thing”? Hint, it’s the last one. Because that novel isn’t a dystopia for someone like Musk, it’s a utopia.

This is ultimately the point of speculative fiction. It makes comments upon our current society through fictional worlds, to show us the follies of our ways. The trick is to make sure WE heed the message and stop the rich and powerful from steering us (further) into dystopia.

Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book review: Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews

Clean Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles, #1)Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Tripadvisor reviews could literally kill your Inn.

Dina Demille runs an out-of-the-way inn catering to a very special clientele. The kind that want safety, neutrality, and for the local Texans to not suspect they are aliens. This is threatened when something starts killing dogs in the neighbourhood. She tries to get the local werewolf to deal with it but finds herself roped into the problem. Before she knows it, Dina is fighting a powerful intergalactic assassin to stop a war between vampire clans.

As a fan of the Kate Daniels series, I’ve been meaning to read more from Ilona and Gordan Andrews. My wife’s family had recently devoured the Innkeeper Chronicles and wouldn’t shut up about it. So it seemed like a safe bet that I’d probably enjoy this one.

Yep. It was great.

When my wife first mentioned Clean Sweep, I thought it sounded like Tanya Huff’s Keeper’s Chronicles. Innkeeper vs Keeper’s Chronicles… Young magical woman… Pet that isn’t really a pet… Magical inn… Love interest… And I enjoyed Summon the Keeper, so this totally not a rip-off should be good.

This was such a fun novel. It was fast-paced, plenty of action, the characters bounced off each other well, and everything felt earned. And in a book full of highlights, the Twilight joke at the end was a great touch.

Despite the superficial similarities between the Innkeeper and the Keeper’s series, they are very different. Clean Sweep has a faster pace and more action. Summon the Keeper has more humour and puts all the pieces in play for the final act. I enjoyed both, but Clean Sweep was easily better.

Can’t wait to read the next in the series.

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Book review: The Grief Hole by Kaaron Warren

The Grief HoleThe Grief Hole by Kaaron Warren

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who’d have thought musicians have a dark side?

Theresa helps women find emergency housing. But sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes she has to intervene because she can see ghosts clustering around an imminent victim. After an intervention leaves her battered, she goes to reconnect with her Uncle and Aunt, where she is drawn into the mystery surrounding her lost cousin and her art. Is she strong enough to not be drawn in too far?

This is a tough review for me to write as I haven’t actually finished it, yet feel compelled to say something before DNFing.

I bought Kaaron’s book almost two years ago and thought it was about damned time I read it. I was immediately drawn in. As much as I hate using the terms “powerful” and “evocative” in book reviews,* I actually think they are apt here. There are some real gut-punch moments that bring you to the world of grief. The list of awards it has won is thus unsurprising.

And of course, this is exactly the time to read such a book…

With the stress of a pandemic, the upheavals to work, the uncertainties of the near future, this was just not the sort of book I could keep reading. This is a compliment to Kaaron, as this book certainly “evokes”* but that is just not what I need right now. I will have to return to finish the last third when real-life feels less like a horror novel.

* There are quite a few buzzwords that appear in book reviews and blurbs that don’t really say anything. Powerful? Like a steroid munching Nordic strongman, or a highly effecting and engaging narrative? Evocative? As in the imagination is stirred, or the emotions, or both?

Expect my next fiction review to be of something a little more light-hearted.

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Book review: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Zoo CityZoo City by Lauren Beukes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes the albatross around your neck is alive.

Zinzi December is scraping by finding lost things and writing email scams to pay off her debts. Her life as a Zoo, someone magically saddled with an animal for their misdeeds (a sloth), in South Africa is a struggle to stay afloat. When one of her clients is murdered she is offered a job finding a lost teen pop-idol. The money is too good. The job isn’t.

It’s been a few years since I met Lauren at a writers festival. In that time I’ve read several of her books, including The Shining Girls and her collection of short stories. She always manages to bring something fresh to the page. If I was to tell you that characters in this book have a spirit animal magically tied to them you’d immediately think His Dark Materials. Well, no, nothing like that at all. In The Shining Girls, there was time travel. Nope, not in the way you’re thinking. And that is the skill Lauren brings to the page.

Zoo City is a compelling read. The world feels dirty and nasty inhabited with characters who are hustling or surviving. And the missing person case is a great excuse to traipse through this world. But this strength is also why some people may not enjoy the book. After spending some time in Zoo City you feel in need of a shower and there is a sense of hopelessness or nihilism. Best to know that going in or this could turn you off.

I’m looking forward to reading Lauren’s other novels.

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Book review: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's WifeThe Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you have a lot of naked adventures, wouldn’t you move to a more agreeable climate?

Henry “library boy” DeTamble is unstuck in time. He visits moments from the past and future unbidden and with a lack of clothes. Claire is his wife. She has loved him since she met Henry as a little six-year-old girl and he was thirty-six. This is the story of their complicated life together.

I’ve been meaning to read The Time Traveler’s Wife since I saw the movie on our honeymoon. Achievement unlocked before the tenth anniversary! This isn’t the sort of book I’d normally read as it is a relationship focussed story with a heart-rendingly sad conclusion. Yet I really enjoyed it.

There were two things that let the novel down for me. The first is that this book runs long. There isn’t any needless rambling or overuse of exposition, but it felt like the story had a lot of filler. None of that filler was bad, per se, but I couldn’t help but feel this novel was about a third longer than it needed to be.

The second thing was the slightly uncomfortable relationship between Henry and Claire. While I was reading there were only a few moments that felt “wrong” and that those moments were handwaved a bit too much (e.g. teen Claire and adult Henry having the hots for one another). But those moments tie to the larger issues with the relationship being fated to mess with Claire’s whole life, and to a lesser extent Henry’s. If this had been discussed more directly and given more weight I’d have been happier.

Overall, I enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife and would recommend it.

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Blog Topic, Reblogged

How speculative fiction gained literary respectability

File 20181101 78447 11kbg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Biologists are gathering evidence of green algae (pictured here in Kuwait) becoming carbohydrate-rich but less nutritious, due to increased carbon dioxide levels. As science fiction becomes science fact, new forms of storytelling are emerging.
Raed Qutena

Rose Michael, RMIT University

I count myself lucky. Weird, I know, in this day and age when all around us the natural and political world is going to hell in a handbasket. But that, in fact, may be part of it.

Back when I started writing, realism had such a stranglehold on publishing that there was little room for speculative writers and readers. (I didn’t know that’s what I was until I read it in a reader’s report for my first novel. And even then I didn’t know what it was, until I realised that it was what I read, and had always been reading; what I wrote, and wanted to write.) Outside of the convention rooms, that is, which were packed with less-literary-leaning science-fiction and fantasy producers and consumers.

Realism was the rule, even for those writing non-realist stories, such as popular crime and commercial romance. Perhaps this dominance was because of a culture heavily influenced by an Anglo-Saxon heritage. Richard Lea has written in The Guardian of “non-fiction” as a construct of English literature, arguing other cultures do not distinguish so obsessively between stories on the basis of whether or not they are “real”.

China Miéville in 2010.
Pan MacMillan Australia/AAP

Regardless of the reason, this conception of literary fiction has been widely accepted – leading self-described “weird fiction” novelist China Miéville to identify the Booker as a genre prize for specifically realist literary fiction; a category he calls “litfic”. The best writers Australia is famous for producing aren’t only a product of this environment, but also role models who perpetuate it: Tim Winton and Helen Garner write similarly realistically, albeit generally fiction for one and non-fiction for the other.

Today, realism remains the most popular literary mode. Our education system trains us to appreciate literatures of verisimilitude; or, rather, literature we identify as “real”, charting interior landscapes and emotional journeys that generally represent a quite particular version of middle-class life. It’s one that may not have much in common these days with many people’s experiences – middle-class, Anglo or otherwise – or even our exterior world(s).

Like other kinds of biases, realism has been normalised, but there is now a growing recognition – a re-evaluation – of different kinds of “un-real” storytelling: “speculative” fiction, so-called for its obviously invented and inventive aspects.

Feminist science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin has described this diversification as:

a much larger collective conviction about who’s entitled to tell stories, what stories are worth telling, and who among the storytellers gets taken seriously … not only in terms of race and gender, but in terms of what has long been labelled “genre” fiction.

Closer to home, author Jane Rawson – who has written short stories and novels and co-authored a non-fiction handbook on “surviving” climate change – has described the stranglehold realistic writing has on Australian stories in an article for Overland, yet her own work evidences a new appreciation for alternative, novel modes.

Rawson’s latest book, From the Wreck, intertwines the story of her ancestor George Hills, who was shipwrecked off the coast of South Australia and survived eight days at sea, with the tale of a shape-shifting alien seeking refuge on Earth. In an Australian first, it was long-listed for the Miles Franklin, our most prestigious literary award, after having won the niche Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction.

The Aurealis awards were established in 1995 by the publishers of Australia’s longest-running, small-press science-fiction and fantasy magazine of the same name. As well as recognising the achievements of Australian science-fiction, fantasy and horror writers, they were designed to distinguish between those speculative subgenres.

Last year, five of the six finalists for the Aurealis awards were published, promoted and shelved as literary fiction.

A broad church

Perhaps what counts as speculative fiction is also changing. The term is certainly not new; it was first used in an 1889 review, but came into more common usage after genre author Robert Heinlein’s 1947 essay On the Writing of Speculative Fiction.

Whereas science fiction generally engages with technological developments and their potential consequences, speculative fiction is a far broader, vaguer term. It can be seen as an offshoot of the popular science-fiction genre, or a more neutral umbrella category that simply describes all non-realist forms, including fantasy and fairytales – from the epic of Gilgamesh through to The Handmaid’s Tale.



Read more:
Guide to the classics: the Epic of Gilgamesh

While critic James Wood argues that “everything flows from the real … it is realism that allows surrealism, magic realism, fantasy, dream and so on”, others, such as author Doris Lessing, believe that everything flows from the fantastic; that all fiction has always been speculative. I am not as interested in which came first (or which has more cultural, or commercial, value) as I am in the fact that speculative fiction – “spec-fic” – seems to be gaining literary respectability.
(Next step, surely, mainstream popularity! After all, millions of moviegoers and television viewers have binge-watched the rise of fantastic forms, and audiences are well versed in unreal onscreen worlds.)

One reason for this new interest in an old but evolving form has been well articulated by author and critic James Bradley: climate change. Writers, and publishers, are embracing speculative fiction as an apt form to interrogate what it means to be human, to be humane, in the current climate – and to engage with ideas of posthumanism too.

These are the sorts of existential questions that have historically driven realist literature.

According to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2018 Living Planet Report, 60% of the world’s wildlife disappeared between 1970 and 2012. The year 2016 was declared the hottest on record, echoing the previous year and the one before that. People under 30 have never experienced a month in which average temperatures are below the long-term mean. Hurricanes register on the Richter scale and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has added a colour to temperature maps as the heat keeps on climbing.

Science fiction? Science fact.

A baby Francois Langur at Taronga Zoo in June. François Langurs are a critically endangered species found in China and Vietnam.
AAP Image/Supplied by Taronga Zoo

What are we to do about this? Well, according to writer and geographer Samuel Miller-McDonald, “If you’re a writer, then you have to write about this.”

There is an infographic doing the rounds on Facebook that shows sister countries with comparable climates to (warming) regions of Australia. But it doesn’t reflect the real issue. Associate Professor Michael Kearney, Research Fellow in Biosciences at the University of Melbourne, points out that no-one anywhere in the world has any experience of our current CO2 levels. The changed environment is, he says – using a word that is particularly appropriate for my argument – a “novel” situation.

Elsewhere, biologists are gathering evidence of algae that carbon dioxide has made carbohydrate-rich but less nutritious. So the plankton that rely on them to survive might eat more and more and yet still starve.

Fiction focused on the inner lives of a limited cross-section of people no longer seems the best literary form to reflect, or reflect on, our brave new outer world – if, indeed, it ever was.

Whether it’s a creative response to catastrophic climate change, or an empathic, philosophical attempt to express cultural, economic, neurological – or even species – diversification, the recognition works such as Rawson’s are receiving surely shows we have left Modernism behind and entered the era of Anthropocene literature.

And her book is not alone. Other wild titles achieving similar success include Krissy Kneen’s An Uncertain Grace, shortlisted for the Aurealis, the Stella prize and the Norma K. Hemming award – given to mark excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class or disability in a speculative fiction work.

Kneen’s book connects five stories spanning a century, navigating themes of sexuality – including erotic explorations of transgression and transmutation – against the backdrop of a changing ocean.

Earlier, more realist but still speculative titles (from 2015) include Mireille Juchau’s The World Without Us and Bradley’s Clade. These novels fit better with Miéville’s description of “litfic”, employing realistic literary techniques that would not be out of place in Winton’s books, but they have been called “cli-fi” for the way they put climate change squarely at the forefront of their stories (though their authors tend to resist such generic categorisation).

Both novels, told across time and from multiple points of view, are concerned with radically changed and catastrophically changing environments, and how the negative consequences of our one-world experiment might well – or, rather, ill – play out.

Catherine McKinnnon’s Storyland is a more recent example that similarly has a fantastic aspect. The author describes her different chapters set in different times, culminating – Cloud Atlas–like, in one futuristic episode – as “timeslips” or “time shifts” rather than time travel. Yet it has been received as speculative – and not in a pejorative way, despite how some “high-art” literary authors may feel about “low-brow” genre associations.

Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017.
Neil Hall/AAP

Kazuo Ishiguro, for instance, told The New York Times when The Buried Giant was released in 2015 that he was fearful readers would not “follow him” into Arthurian Britain. Le Guin was quick to call him out on his obvious attempt to distance himself from the fantasy category. Michel Faber, around the same time, told a Wheeler Centre audience that his Book of Strange New Things, where a missionary is sent to convert an alien race, was “not about aliens” but alienation. Of course it is the latter, but it is also about the other.

All these more-and-less-speculative fictions – these not-traditionally-realist literatures – analyse the world in a way that it is not usually analysed, to echo Tim Parks’s criterion for the best novels. Interestingly, this sounds suspiciously like science-fiction critic Darko Suvin’s famous conception of the genre as a literature of “cognitive estrangement”, which inspires readers to re-view their own world, think in new ways, and – most importantly – take appropriate action.

A new party

Perhaps better case studies of what local spec-fic is or does – when considering questions of diversity – are Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things and Claire Coleman’s Terra Nullius.

The first is a distinctly Aussie Handmaid’s Tale for our times, where “girls” guilty by association with some unspecified sexual scenario are drugged, abducted and held captive in a remote outback location.

The latter is another idea whose time has come: an apocalyptic act of colonisation. Not such an imagined scenario for Noongar woman Coleman. It’s a tricky plot to tell without giving away spoilers – the book opens on an alternative history, or is it a futuristic Australia? Again, the story is told through different points of view, which prioritises collective storytelling over the authority of a single voice.



Read more:
Friday essay: science fiction’s women problem

“The entire purpose of writing Terra Nullius,” Coleman has said, “was to provoke empathy in people who had none.”

This connection of reading with empathy is a case Neil Gaiman made in a 2013 lecture when he told of how China’s first party-approved science-fiction and fantasy convention had come about five years earlier.

Neil Gaiman.
Julien Warnand/EPA

The Chinese had sent delegates to Apple and Google etc to try to work out why America was inventing the future, he said. And they had discovered that all the programmers, all the entrepreneurs, had read science fiction when they were children.

“Fiction can show you a different world,” said Gaiman. “It can take you somewhere you’ve never been.”

And when you come back, you see things differently. And you might decide to do something about that: you might change the future.

Perhaps the key to why speculative fiction is on the rise is the ways in which it is not “hard” science fiction. Rather than focusing on technology and world-building to the point of potential fetishism, as our “real” world seems to be doing, what we are reading today is a sophisticated literature engaging with contemporary cultural, social and political matters – through the lens of an “un-real” idea, which may be little more than a metaphor or errant speculation.

The Conversation

Rose Michael, Lecturer, Writing & Publishing, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book review: Dark Intelligence by Neal Asher

Dark Intelligence (Transformation, #1)Dark Intelligence by Neal Asher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If AI essentially become gods does that make humans the prime mover?

Thorvald Spear died 100 years ago in the war with the Prador. Fortunately, this is the future, so death is less final than it used to be. But Spear is less than happy with how he died at the hands of the black AI, Penny Royal, and decides to destroy it. Along the way he manages to piss off Isobel Satomi, who has also got a carapace to pick with Penny Royal. So she adds Spear to her list of things to destroy. Meanwhile, Penny Royal is up to something, and everyone wants to know what.

This was my first outing with Neal Asher and his Polity universe. Asher was recommended to me by a fellow blogger – Bookstooge – so I found this recent series in the library. There is much I enjoyed about this book, and by extension the universe Asher has created. The details that give this universe a lived in feel, the cyberpunk sensibilities, the interesting sci-fi technology, are all fantastic. The story and characters are also interesting. So why only 3 stars?

There were two things that really stopped me enjoying this novel more: the length; and the anachronisms.

Sci-fi has a habit of being long because someone decided that that was okay for spec-fic genres. Dark Intelligence made me notice that this was a long book. Usually if you are really enjoying a book, the length goes unnoticed. So I had the sense that there was too much padding, unnecessary exposition, and side plots. It all fits together nicely, but I’m sure that this could come in much shorter without losing anything.

The second problem I had was with the constant anachronisms. Sounds being described as like a domino being slapped on the board… because dominoes is so popular right now, let alone a few centuries into the future. The Polity universe is filled with hyper-intelligent AIs that can do just about anything… but apparently cars still need a human to drive them. Tesla had that covered two years ago. After noticing one anachronism the floodgates opened, to the point where I started to question if this was Asher having a joke. But I doubt this is the case, since he criticised Greg Bear for doing the same thing in a book review.

Perhaps I’ll enjoy The Skinner more, which Bookstooge originally recommended.

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Book review: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)Neuromancer by William Gibson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you directly influence the creation of cyberpunk, The Matrix, the term cyberspace, and popularising the term ICE, does that mean you get a pass on influencing dubstep?

Case is your average run-of-the-mill washed-up loser. On his way to drug addled death after his hacking career is cut short, he is recruited to perform the ultimate hack. Patched back together with new organs, he joins a team recruited to help an AI.

I feel like I’m being unfair in my rating for Neuromancer. This is one of those classic novels that deserves the praise it receives. The influence this novel has had on science fiction, particularly upon film, is hard to overstate. It is also easy to underestimate the skill of Gibson’s writing. For example, just before starting Neuromancer I tried (and failed) to read a sci-fi novel with a similar level of world building and interesting ideas. Where that novel failed in being able to make the jargon feel natural, and the explanations flow, Gibson succeeds. His narrative isn’t bogged down by the world building the way many others can be.

Having said that, Neuromancer didn’t grab me. It was entertaining enough to keep me reading, but not enough to have me rating it higher. I’d imagine that had I read this novel 20-30 years earlier my opinion would be different. It is the curse of being the original that everyone copies. At some point people like myself won’t be wowed because they’ve seen it all before by the time they read the progenitor.

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Book Review: The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft

The Call of CthulhuThe Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Why choose the lesser evil? Vote Cthulhu.

Francis Thurston starts fossicking through his uncle’s things and discovers some notes and a carving. Fascinated, he searches high and low to uncover the origins of the carving. Soon he is traversing the world to uncover a cult and the being they worship. Things only get better from there on in.

It is hard to review a classic work of fiction. Usually, there are only a few paths open to you:
1) Fawning sycophancy;
2) A belligerent dismissal of the work as rubbish which avoids engaging in anything other than superficial comment;
3) Overly detailed comment and critique that ends up being worthy of a Masters dissertation that no-one will bother reading and just assume you did #2 (i.e. a complete waste of time);
4) A review that is clearly based on having watched the movie adaptation.

The reasons that this is a hugely influential work are clear. The mystery being uncovered with a slow reveal. The dense and subtle narrative. The gradual rise in tension as we come to the realisation. It is also a bleak comment on human existence and our insignificance. But there is also the use of the memoir narrative that appears to have been very popular in speculative fiction in the past. For me, this style removes both the narrator and the reader from the events of the story, which removes much of the tension and emotion.

I feel comfortable saying my rating is “good but not great” because Lovecraft himself described this as a middling effort.

giphy

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Book review: Afterlife by Marcus Sakey

AfterlifeAfterlife by Marcus Sakey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you kill enough people you become a god. Still makes you a jerk though.

Agents Will Brody and Claire McCoy are hunting a serial killer. But he is unlike any serial killer who has ever come before. He is always a step ahead. He has power. And he has help. I could give more away, but the title gives you the idea.

Afterlife is an intriguing book. The ideas underpinning this supernatural speculative fiction story are as original as you will see. And mixed with this are two interesting characters and their relationship. It hangs together nicely whilst not becoming bogged down with the sort of world-building that spec-fic can bore readers with.

That said, I almost gave up on this book. The first chapter didn’t grab me at all. It isn’t until later in the novel that you understand why that chapter is there at all. Similarly the semi-ambiguous ending may also throw some people given the setup prior to the penultimate chapter. These points, particularly the first one, could discourage people. Normally I don’t say this – since I’m big on giving up on books ASAP to make room for good books – but stick with this for a few chapters. Don’t be put off by the opener, it will make sense soon.

NB: I was provided a review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: No Time Left by David Baldacci

No Time LeftNo Time Left by David Baldacci

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

If you time travel how can you have no time left?

It is pretty hard to review this book without spoilers, and quite honestly you’ll want to read the spoilers so you won’t waste your time. This short story is about an assassin who is hired to kill his own mother in the past. He does so, he ceases to exist. End of story.

Don’t worry, I didn’t ruin anything for you.

This was so predictable as to be confusing. How could such a popular author churn out such a generic waste of space as this story? Baldacci offers no unique take on this well worn trope, he doesn’t give us an interesting character to follow, his story has massive plot holes, and he doesn’t even offer money back…. Okay, I did get this from the library, but I still feel he owes me money.

The positive reviews I have read for this story appear to be from long time fans. This is my third underwhelming outing with Baldacci. There won’t be a fourth outing.

NB: I do apologise for posting a negative review. Normally I avoid mentioning the books I haven’t enjoyed. I’m making an exception with this review because this story reeks of a big name author and their publisher putting out any old dross they feel like.

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Book Review: The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells

The Island of Dr. MoreauThe Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you can make an animal into a person, how long do you think it will be before someone can make a person decent?

Edward Prendick survives a shipwreck and is rescued by a supply ship headed for The Island of Dr Moreau. Prendick is cast overboard by the supply ship and is thus stranded on the island where he discovers a mad scientist (surgeon actually) has been at work for many years. The locals are huge fans of vivisection. Things go downhill when Brando is cast as Moreau.

I mostly enjoyed rereading this novel, and I definitely understood more of the issues than when I read it as a kid. At the time HG Wells wrote this famous tale, there was much debate in Europe regarding degeneration, evolution, and vivisection. Wells himself thought that humans could use vivisection for evolutionary purposes. And what better way to discuss these issues than in a science fiction novel.

There were two main issues that stopped me enjoying this novel more. The first issue is common to all of the HG Wells novels I have recently reviewed, and that is the dated style that drains a lot of the tension out of the narrative. The reader is always left at arm’s-length from the story. The second issue is a narrative device that is still commonly used today: book-ending. Book-ending (a term I’ve probably made up) is where the actual story is wedged between an external narrative that is used to recount the story proper. This does two things that annoy me: it adds needless narrative and characters; and it destroys any suspense or mystery. The latter is the worst part. In The Island of Dr Moreau we already know that Prendick survives the island and his experiences have left him emotionally scarred and unable to live among people, because his nephew introduces the tale after finding the manuscript when Prendick dies.

Regardless, this is a creepy tale that is worth reading even if you just want to learn to recite ‘Are We Not Men’.

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Book Review: Slipping by Lauren Beukes

Slipping: Stories, Essays, & Other WritingSlipping: Stories, Essays, & Other Writing by Lauren Beukes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Could zombies be a viable replacement for slave labour? Asking for a certain electronics company. And most clothing manufacturers.

Slipping is an interesting collection of writing from the brain of Lauren Beukes. From enhanced athletes to bored ghosts, these stories display Lauren’s spec-fic interests. There are also a few essays at the end of the collection, one of which explains the personal inspiration behind The Shining Girls; an essay well worth reading.

I met Lauren at a writers’ festival where she was running a workshop on, surprise surprise, writing. I really enjoyed reading the aforementioned The Shining Girls as it was a highly enjoyable mix of crime and spec-fic. So I was looking forward to reading this collection. As with any collection of previously published works, there are highs and lows. For me, the highs outweighed the lows, with Slipping, The Green, and Ghost Girl being amongst my favourites. I think the strengths of this collection come from the South African cultural influence to Lauren’s writing, which gives far more grittiness to the bleak sci-fi stories than you usually see.

If you’re a spec-fic fan, or a fan of Lauren’s writing – and how could you not be? – then you will find some compelling stories in this collection.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Reading, Writing

Talking Spec-Fic with Rex Jameson

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Today we have a special guest on the site. My friend Rex is an author, science nerd and has as many degrees as I have, so you can see why we get along so well. Last year Rex released his first novel, Lucifer’s Odyssey, which I recommend for any speculative fiction and fantasy fans, and this year has released the sequel, The Goblin Rebellion (which is free for the next couple of days).

Tyson: Rex, you’ve had a busy 6 months. You have released your first novel, gotten married, released two novellas, completed a PhD and released your second novel. The obvious question I have for you is, what are you currently reading?

Rex: Unfortunately, most of my reading material has been non-fiction recently. I work in real-time, embedded systems and am involved in several interesting projects involving spacecraft, mobile devices and very soon remote-controlled drones. I’ve also been giving job talks for professor positions and finishing up my dissertation (March).

T: So boring stuff is working with real spacecraft? You just killed the dream of every boy under the age of 12.

R: Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s boring at all. I’m extremely excited about my work, and I plan on doing much more of it!

T: What about fiction?

R: The next fiction books on my list are a couple of indie author works: Moses Siregar’s “The Black God’s War” and Jennifer Rainey’s “These Hellish Happenings.” I’m also REALLY wanting to read George R. R. Martin’s epic series. It feels like I’m running into people reading a Dance of Dragons at every airport I enter, but I’ve heard stories about weeks-long splurges on his books, and I’m trying to avoid it until I’m able to really get into it.

T: Jennifer’s book is on my to-read list, which is still 6 or more months long. I found the first three Game of Thrones e-books on sale and snapped them up. Whenever I read a book or series that has taken the world by storm I am always underwhelmed. I call it the DaVinci Effect.

R: A well-chosen descriptor.

T: Thanks. How much Christian hate mail have you received so far after Lucifer’s Odyssey?

R: I wouldn’t say it’s Christian hate mail. I’ve received some sporadic messaging that I would characterize as worried. Part of being a Christian is discipleship, and some people take that very seriously. A novel that spans trillions of light years in distance and involves creatures living hundreds of millions and even billions of years does appear to conflict with strict belief in the 6,000-10,000 year old creation story.

But I honestly find it odd that this rift between modern scientific discovery and Christianity even exists. It would have been quite easy to update Christianity to account for the fossil records in a way that doesn’t involve saying “but those are all from Noah’s flood” (which is quite ludicrous) and in modifying man’s role in the universe once we realized just how massive the known universe is. Instead, many in America tend to look at science’s findings as one of God’s tests: a challenge that God has handed down to test the tenacity of their belief that every word in the Bible is in fact directly from God and thus infallible. And this kind of stubbornness to adapt to facts and findings has retarded our growth as a species since Galileo. I’ve heard from some that this voluntary impediment is in fact reasonable and expected because Eve shouldn’t have eaten from the knowledge tree to begin with…

Anyway, yes I’ve gotten some mail, but I understood I would be getting it. Most of it has been cordial, but religious figures are a touchy subject, even if they are presented in a fantastic and fictitious light in the series. The series is not intended to bash Christian beliefs by any means. It’s more of a modern retelling of the origin story with the vastness of the universe and time taken into account. I also love string theory and the concept of multiverses, time-dilation, chaos theory, and other hobbies of mine, and the only way to properly have fun with them was to set them in an expansive series of universes.

T: I like that yourself and David McAfee have both been listed on a review of your book. Apparently you’ve created a genre for Christians to get riled up about.

R: Yeah, pseudo-biblical fiction. With the way it’s defined, most fantasy could be placed in there. I’m pretty sure any book with a savior child character who is promised by prophecy in a religious tome could fall into this genre, should a comparison be wanted. Belgarion in David Edding’s Belgariad series might fall into this comparison, even though it’s unrelated to Christianity, just because a savior child is promised to the Earth and rescues the world from evil. It’s probably an appropriate descriptor for my first series, though I’d disagree with the anti-Christian characteristic for reasons stated in the comment section of that article.

T: Interestingly the entire “young Earth” thing is just one section of six views on Christian religious interpretation. Most sects are fine with science. Of course I’ve received enough death threats to understand fundamentalists are the strange cousin of any societal group, we’re all embarrassed by them.

R: The Young Earth group may be one of six Christian interpretations, but it’s hardly the minority in America. My only issue with the group is that they’ve latched onto the debates that atheists and theists have concerning the origin of the universe (i.e., Big Bang versus Creationism), and are using issues with the current perceived expansion rate of the universe as proof that the entire scientific movement is a house of cards.

For example, the fossil record is now in some way dependent on the Big Bang and collapsing expansion theory, tectonic plates are now somehow linked to weathermen not getting the weather right all the time, evolution is now directly linked to asteroids carrying microbes being the real originator of life, or climate change is suspect because it doesn’t make sense that matter can come into existence from nothing. I’ve seen all of these claims in arguments from Young Earth creationists. Even though none of these are dependent upon each other, it’s become a science versus creationism argument where all science can now be suspect simply because a Young Earth creationist is unwilling to investigate or learn about an entire branch of science–since someone has convinced them that all science is wrong and evil and counter to God’s intentions for mankind.

The result is a sustained rise of fear and ignorance, and that is a huge impediment on progress. And ultimately, I believe the continued pressure of this movement on education is causing less emphasis on math and science in American schools and is directly hindering our economy and ability to produce quality researchers, which are required for innovation and technological growth. After all, environment has a lot to do with educational responses of children. If parents don’t value math and science and look upon them negatively, children are likely to have the same feelings.

T: Can we expect to see Lucifer square off against his noodliness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

R: I don’t think that would be much of a fair fight. Yes, FSM has wing-like structures that might help propel him through space, but FSM’s wings appear quite squishy and obviously delicious. Lucifer appears to be made of stronger stuff in the series, and I doubt he’s anywhere near as tasty. Therefore he has fewer natural predators, a sword, the ability to open a channel to near-infinite reserves of energy in a big-bang-like state, and wings made of a nearly indestructible material–while the demons or angels are alive and their soul is present. In contrast, I’ve never seen FSM with a sword. I’ve seen him falling for the “pull my finger” routine (which shows obvious gullibility) but never wielding a scary weapon.

I’ll admit I could be underestimating his ability to smother someone with special sauce or noodly goodness.

T: You also forget his noodliness has pirates on his side. Actually: Flying Spagehetti Monster, Lucifer, Pirates, Christian outrage; add ninjas and zombies to the mix and you have the next Da Vinci Code!!

R: Heh! If only it were that easy, we could all be rich!

T: You classified Odyssey as speculative fiction, I would have called it fantasy: Wheel of Time, spec fic or fantasy?

R: In my defense, I have categorized the work as epic fantasy and space opera. I haven’t read Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time past the first book. I recently thought about picking it up during the holidays, but then I saw the reviews for New Spring and decided against it (at least for now). I read Derek Prior’s “Cadman’s Gambit”, instead, and I’m happy I did. It’s a complicated story but good. It’s also speculative fiction/fantasy, btw.

T: I started the first in the Wheel of Time series, moved onto the Night Angel series by Brent Weeks. Fantasy always seems to be code for “I didn’t want to grab my street map for exposition”, unless it has elves or dragons in it. Apparently having a proper imagination precludes classification in other genres.
Game of Thrones, ditto, spec fic or fantasy?

R: Fantasy. I’ve seen a couple of the HBO episodes but haven’t started the book series out of fear of missing my dissertation and paper deadlines. That being said, it will be mine–oh, yes!

T: Thesis deadlines are highly over-rated. They only apply to the postgrad student and not anyone else in the chain. I still haven’t received my certificate. Actually, there is an idea for an epic thriller: “Two postgrad students (Rex and Tyson) fight the hard slog of science, peer review and the ruthless administration building to finally graduate. But will it be too late to enter the real world?”

R: Honestly, my adviser doesn’t seem like he’s in much of a hurry to get me out the door, but I’m chomping at the bit to have my own lab, target my own research grants, and teach my own classes. So, that’s really the only reason I’m pushing so hard to finish my dissertation. The job I want requires final paperwork and the funny robes, and I’m getting feedback and interest from great universities and faculty that I’d love to work with.

T: Funny robes and extra acronyms attached to your name is always handy, especially when you are arguing with the anti-science brigade.
So you’re sticking with your classification for Lucifer’s Odyssey? You could sucker a few unwitting literary fiction readers.

R: The classification of Lucifer’s Odyssey as speculative fiction comes from the fact that readers debate about whether Roger Zelazny’s Amber Series was “classic science fiction”, “fantasy”, or the much more recent “speculative fiction.” I had read some commentary on the Kindleboards from readers, and many of them seemed less offended by the label “speculative fiction” than choosing one of the categories with stricter modern interpretations of genre boundaries.

Lucifer’s Odyssey is more fantasy than science fiction, and the majority of my work will probably be more fantasy than science fiction. I chalk this up to my line of work. When you look to escape your current situation, you often go to the opposite extreme of what you do every day. Since my job has me looking at problems in satellites, rc drones, and mobile phones in mission critical systems, my writing escapes tend to be more fantastical rather than technical. I have some ideas for thrillers and pure fantasy, but I’m putting them on the back-burner until I at least finish “Shadows of our Fathers”, the third book in the Primal Patterns series.

T: I hear you there. I’m writing thrillers where the main characters get to shoot a lot of people. Shooting someone for making up their opinion on the spot, to argue with the person who has just spent the last few years researching the topic, isn’t widely accepted in society.

R: Well, I’ve noticed people are far more willing to read a book about shooting random people than a derelict homeless man dropping f-bombs when the devil kills his friend. Maybe your idea could work.

T: Are you living proof that being an author attracts the ladies, since you got married after publishing Odyssey?

R: Hah! Hardly!

Although Lucifer’s Odyssey was published last year, it started as a short story several years ago. The original story was from the perspective of Michael and involved the bar scene, the interrogation, and the escape and burial of Azazel (which was taken out completely during editing), but in a much more primitive form. And quite frankly it was terrible. Even after several rewrites, it was bad.

I met my wife while the story was forgotten in a folder on my hard drive. So, resuscitating it and redrafting it a few times resulted in far more eyerolls from her than attraction. Still, she’s awesome and incredibly supportive. It takes a special kind of person to love someone who has a job that sends them frequently abroad and often spends a considerable amount of time at a computer writing stories or developing software when they’re in the room with you. She’s a rock star and a wonderful person!

My wife pointed out that the reason I was having trouble writing any of my stories was that they were all depressing and dark. Now they are shooty and dark, so it is amazing what our partners can bring to our writing.

Actually, the novelette “Elves and Goblins: Perspectives of a Father’s Rebellion” is totally dark and shooty. Maybe one day we could collaborate on a thriller or something. Might be fun.

T: Well, we already have an idea for the plot. Although submitting a thesis at gun point and combating peer review in a death match scenario may only appeal to scientists.
I’m going to put in a spoiler alert here: at the end of your first novel Jesus ended up somewhat shorter. Doesn’t that leave the next book without a decent bad guy? Because if the sequel is Lucifer dealing with his feelings about the loss of his cat to cancer, I might not promote it.

R: Here’s an even bigger spoiler: I have no plans for putting Jesus into the series, and there’s a framework for seven books–though I only plan on doing three books in the Primal Patterns before moving on to something else for a while. That could change if readers demand it, but I think a foray into more standard fare might be something that would appeal to new readers. Contemporary urban epic fantasy like the Winter Phenomenon series I had planned or maybe expansion of one of my short stories.

T: We had a conversation about how wonderful editors are a few months ago. How do you think your editor could improve something written by the average monkey at a typewriter?

R: I’m afraid I won’t name names, but the bane of most unedited first work is head-jumping and bad dialogue. I’ve noticed many new fantasy or science fiction authors tend to do pretty well with action sequences. I say many and not most. Most self-published work is still bad, and I think all work should be edited in some way by neutral parties in your genre. The only exception to this are trained professionals or people who know how to remove themselves from the work and become neutral parties in the genre.

Another thing that an editor does for an author is give some peace-of-mind to the fiction writing process on subsequent books. When I was writing Lucifer’s Odyssey, I had a lot of self doubts about whether or not I could tell a story this complex. I’m not sure the answer is ‘yes’ yet, but from the reviews, I don’t think I’ve done a terrible job either.

A couple of readers have noted that the tone can be jarring, and after asking one of them, I was told that the tendency of Sariel to inject humor into serious situations was the type of tonal change that seemed unusual. My editor once made a suggestion on one of these, and I did tell him that I would rather Sariel remain that way because sarcasm and fraternal humor is basically how he’d gotten through life as a youngest child, a seemingly destiny-less position, in the most important family in all of Chaos. His tone changes quite a bit in the second book, but that core is still there. He’s lived for millions of years, and he still has his daredevil instincts and a frightening tendency to play with his food, even if it might kill him.

Now, I’m coming to this in a roundabout way, but I do have a point. An editor is only as useful as you let him or her be. If they make suggestions and you buck them, you better have a good reason for it, and you better be prepared to face the music when readers who want that type of sanitized feel pick up your book.

Similarly, if you didn’t expect backlash but you find it, as a self-published author you have the ability to change it. I recently removed almost all of the cursing from both “Lucifer’s Odyssey” and “Angels and Demons: Perspectives of a Violent Afterlife” because of a handful of complaints (out of thousands of readers). Why? I made a trade off.

I believe that in the real setting, the characters would have cursed, but I know that many more conservative readers would have used the cursing as an easy excuse to not read the book and allow themselves to enjoy the story. I also knew I wanted to give the book away for free for short periods of time, and from experience, I know that this particular type of reader picks up free stories without looking at the summary or the warnings, and they are more likely to leave a 1-star review. Is this my fault? No, but such a 1-star review given within days of a book’s release (especially if it’s the only one) can kill a book’s potential quickly. After re-reading the story without the cursing I felt that the compromise was worth doing.

So I think it’s important to mention that listening to your editor is vital, but so is listening to your readers. Yes, some readers are going to be wrong, and you have to understand that there’s always a vocal minority that believes their opinion is right no matter what evidence is presented to the contrary. But often, readers can be a part of the long-term editing process–the neutral genre voice that guides writing into the next book and the one after that. And that’s worth listening to!

T: Thanks to Rex for taking time out of his hectic day. Spec-fic fans should check out Rex’s writing. See my review of his first novel here.

Book review

Book Review: Lucifer’s Odyssey – Rex Jameson

Some people love reading their friend’s books, others loath it. I can understand some people’s reticence in reading a friend’s work; what if the book sucks? I’ve found that the best way to have friends who are writers is to choose them on the strength of their writing. That way you can’t be disappointed by their subsequent books. Plus, free books!

Rex is much like me: a nerd. As a result it isn’t particularly surprising that Rex has come up with a very interesting melding of speculative fiction, fantasy and sci-fi (the sci-fi element could actually be described as part of the fantasy element, from a certain point of view). This novel reminded me at times of some of Heinlein’s work. Earlier in the book I was especially reminded of Heinlein’s Job: A Comedy of Justice.

Now I have an annoying habit. My friends and family will attest to the fact that I inadvertently spoil movies, TV shows and books by giving away key aspects of what is about to happen. My brother recently complained about me spoiling The Wire for him when I mentioned Stringer Bell dies. So I’m not going to go into too many details about the Odyssey of the title, whether there is more to the initial story of betrayal and conspiracy, whether Jehovah was the messiah or just a naughty boy who is b……. Almost. The plot builds upon itself as the book continues and keeps you involved with the layers of the Odyssey. Suffice to say you will be rooting for Lucifer as he pulls his swords to go Conan on……. Almost did it again.

I’m hoping to have a bit of chat with Rex in the near future, so stay tuned for a future guest blog post.