2003: Veniss Underground (VanderMeer, Jeff)

Myth, horror, and sci-fi in an intricate dance (4/5)

Written in three movements, the three perspectives in Veniss Underground are steeped in textural myth and literary history. As neither a myth historian or literary historian, most of these connotations were only superficially sensed. Veniss Underground has been compared to Dante's Divine Comedy (for its hellish descent into the city's netherworld), Greek mythology's Orpheus and Eurydice (again, for its hellish portrayal), and the Dutch painter Heirontmus Bosch (for its dark portrait of life in a dystopia alá The Hermit Saints Triptych)--all suggested by Publishers Weekly.

Myth? Horror? Science Fiction? Much like the tag of "speculative fiction" or "bizarro-fiction," the amalgamation of each genre's ambiance is brought to the surface in Veniss Underground: the mythical stories of the descent into hell, the horror of somatic pain in the existence of abject poverty, and the science fiction import of future dystopia and reality as illusion. These three heavenly bodies pull of genre and push each other in a dance of literary gravity, a three-bodied system of balance and finesse. where no body exerts more force than any other.

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Part I: Nicholas - 4/5 - Nicholas is robbed of his ceramics and holo art, which leaves him in despair pondering life underground in the garbage of humanity's garbage. One last idea of some sort of personal salvation, Nicholas wants access to Quin's Shanghai Circus through is friend Shadrach. Shadrach, who was once in a relationship with Nicholas' twin sister, Quin "raised him from the dead" after the break-up. Nicholas seeks to get himself a meerkat from "the Livliest Artist" of them all--the creator of new organic species, the regeneration of species long dead, and the melder of the organic. "Working for an artist" of Quin's proportion may be as undefined as the shape and function of his organic avatar of flesh and circus. (16 pages) ----- A fairly short story but laden with terminology and mysteries that can only be and explained revealed upon the completion of Parts I and II. The nuances of the story are flourish when the other stories are read, which turns a confusing 3-star story into a more fulfilling 4-star story upon reflection.

Part II: Nicola - 4/5 - Nicola, twin sister of the recently missing Nicholas, visits her brother's apartment for clues as to his whereabouts. One scrap of paper reveals his obsession with the Livliest Artist, Quin. Nicola contacts her ex-boyfriend and friend of Nicholas, Shadrach, who radiates guilt and brushes off her request for information. Soon after their meeting, Nicola receives a meerkat for a servant, who tends to cook excellent fiddler crab for dinner. Given that the meerkat is the work of the infamous Quin, Nicola trusts the critter very little but also can not resist the urge to follow it as it leaves her flat every morning. (57 pages) ----- Annoying written in a second-person past-tense narrative format, the significance the style ONLY becomes clear half-way through Part III. It definitely takes some adjustment to... but just when you think that the writing style in Part II is just part of the artistic license, the focus is pulled to full detail in Part III and the reader is gifted full insight, forever relieving. Nicola's experience reminds me of Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and Reynolds' Chasm City--a creepy and cryptic combination which favors multi-layered mysteries over th clear and obvious. One possibly idiosyncratic addition to Part II is the narrator's use of alliteration: familiar furry, silently surveys, glint and glitter, row of doors down the corridor, ache of atoms.

Part III: Shadrach - Shadrach still works for Quin but grudgingly accepts the assignments given to him, until his ex-lover Nicola disappears and her eyeballs end up staring back at him from the passive face of a geriatric celebutante. Shadrach returns to Nicola's flat and discovers the hiding servant meerkat in the closet. In order to assist him in descending the rancid depths of the underground, he cuts off the meerkat's head, glues it to a plate, and places it in his inner pocket. With this inside information, Shadrach descends to the organ replacement junk yard seeking Nicola... but he'll have to descend to the 10th level and lower if he plans to seek revenge against the immoral kingpin. (119 pages) ----- The complacent grit in the city alone gives way to evolutions of horror through the levels of the underground; rather than horrific, the events witnessed are ones of abject poverty, bottom of the barrel existence, and the amoral, unnatural existence of creatures from a madman's mind. The chasm of inhumanity is contrasted by the witticisms between the decapitated meerkat and the dedicatedly driven Shadrach. The tiers of corporeal amorality through the descent of the underground is in perfect opposition to Roshwald's descending sterility in Level 7. It also has the odd feeling of Super Mario Bros. and most Nintendo games of the era, where the protagonist/adventurer/hero passes level after level to the conclusive fateful meeting with the "end boss" or "final boss."

2000: Punktown (Thomas, Jeffrey)

Sci-fi, prose, and horror wrapped in imagination (4/5)
From June 7, 2009

Jeffrey Thomas explores his Punktown universe in this collection of 18 short stories. Punktown (officially know as Paxton) is a city on the planet of Oasis which is inhabited by indigenous aliens, humans and a slew of other alien races (some human-like and others... not so much). The entire collection isn't horrific enough for me to able to label in the "horror" genre; rather it's more of a science fiction novel which would comfortably fit the mixed genre of sci-fi/horror. These two essential elements are presented in each story. There's also a fair bit a prose and word usage which keeps the reader endeared amidst the horror--all snug in the wealth of imagination.

This resplendent rare cross-genre extravaganza can be witnessed in Jeremy Robert Johnson's collection Angel Dust Apocalypse, which slants more towards corporeal horror but leans on the gritty underpinnings of a future dystopia. Call it "bizarro-" or "weirdo-" fiction, but the tags applied to these collections detract from the surreal niche in which they fill... an effervescent niche inhabited by the writings of China Miéville of Perdido Street Station) and Haruki Murakami of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.


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The Reflections of Ghosts - 4/5: Drew makes clones for customers, which happen to be mangled versions of himself, so that they could do whatever they please to the helpless copies. He makes a female clone for a wealthy customer who he can mistakenly relate to on a basic level and finds himself in a dilemma. 15 pages

Pink Pills - 4/5: Marisol finds she has a type of tumor named Orb Weaver's Tumor, which is growing from a lump in her jaw. At the alien physician's office, a technician befriends her who could also provide a truth to her lingering suspicions of a rumor. 12 pages

The Flaying Season - 4/5: Kohl has an interest in reviving her erased memories of two traumatic episodes. Could her sister refresh her memory? Could the doctor reload her memories into her brain? Or could a coffee shop customer be a link to her past? 10 pages

Union Dick - 3/5: Yolk is a Union representative and veteran from the Union Wars. His job is to ensure that factories have enough active human employees to work in tandem with their robotic counterparts. One company, though, takes advantage of a loophole in the rule which angers Yolk's dedication to preventing degradation. 11 pages

Wakizashi - 3/5: Officer Soko must assist alien diplomat in its religious purification, even though it will be a horrible death for whoever agrees to be the victim. 14 pages

Dissecting the Soul - 3/5: Maddie is a pathologist who is retrieving the memories of a recently executed murderer. During her retrieval she reviews some events which made the man the monster he became. 6 pages

Precious Metal - 5/5: A robotic jazz band is gunned down inside a club as gangster Grey watches. His clan may be to blame but how does the boss Ng justify this assassination? 10 pages

Sisters of No Mercy - 3/5: A group of women view an act of initiation as the member-to-be Ayn dismembers her victim. With Ayn's further act of dismemberment upon the male race, how will her zealousness be viewed in the eyes of her fellow sisters? 6 pages

Heart for Heart's Sake - 2/5: Impoverished artist Teal and his girlfriend Nimbus are confronted by the power company for stealing electricity and need to come up with money. Thankfully, at his art exhibit a wealthy man purchases his massive artwork... but also comes with its performing beauty, Nimbus. Will this sacrifice help or hinder their relationship? 19 pages

The Ballad of Moosecock Lip - 3/5: Dazey and Brine are drug makers and dealers. They bring a mysterious girl into their circle who then falls victim to the addiction and her life falls apart. Dazey and Brine decide to save her they only way they know how. 6 pages

Face - 4/5: Declan mourns the loss of his mutant son Ian as he revisits the Christmas decorated sewer-mall they had visited in the summer before Ian's death. Declan faces guilt, envy and love yet cannot cope with his loss. 8 pages

The Pressman - 5/5: Manny is a pressman at a printer who works with the new insubordinate yet creative robotic pressman. The mantis-like machine makes Manny seethe with hate and the machine's attitude doesn't help any. 4 pages

The Palace of Nothingness - 4/5: Titus is a Properties Investigator for a real estate company. When reviewing a section of the city, he sees a building, if it is a building, which has been under change decade after decade, yet there is no official mention of its function. Titus takes it upon himself to explore its innards and innateness. 9 pages

The Rusted Gates of Heaven - 2/5: Mendeni visits the Bellakee's estate to see a relic which he had picked up on satellite. The invitation turns into a further unexpected invite and ends with yet another invite, each more provocative than the last. 4 pages

Immolation - 4/5: The non-union Plant worker clone Magnesium Jones escapes to fulfill an assassination contract. This hit is being paid by Plant union employee Parr and the target is the union boss. What are Parr's intentions and the 5-years-out-of-the-tank clone Jones can trusted? 16 pages

Unlimited Daylight - 5/5: Anoushka explores the city to visit book stores and takes lunch at an Indian restaurant in a Choom town. She spies a goggled man there and finds him again in his own bookstore. They befriend each other and talk about each other's language and genres. 15 pages

The Library of Sorrows - 3/5: MacDiaz is the detective of the grisly multiple-murder scene. His memories of this and other murder scenes haunt him, as he has a memory chip installed. His delusional mother has been placed in drawer where she'll stay until she dies. Is the chip more of a blessing than it is a curse? 13 pages

Nom de Guerre - 5/5: A quartet of human assassins meet with a quartet of Vlessi assassins, an alien race shrouded in mystery (rumored to be interdimensional beings, doppelgangers and vampires). Their opposing pharmaceutical company clients have faced them off against each other. Will the rumors be unveiled? 18 pages

1963: Monkey Planet (Boulle, Pierre)

Dry language with a twist of thought (4/5)

Monkey Planet was later named Planet of the Apes to coincide with the release in the cinema. The two titles are of the same book, but the movie named Planet of the Apes is not the same as the book. I'm no general movie aficionado or even a science fiction movie connoisseur, but the 1968 Planet of the Apes film borders on silly and the sequels are just obnoxious. The 2011 reboot of Planet of the Apes adds to the history behind the novel of Monkey Planet... an interesting history only glanced over within the novel but with big implications.

Rear cover synopsis:
"What if monkeys were the master race? Caging your wife, hunting and killing your brothers and sisters for sport? Exhibiting you naked behind a zoo-notice: Homo Pseudo Sapians--stupid but not dangerous--may bite... and generally treating you like the animal you are? Such is the terrifying ordeal of the man in this book. It will startle you into some viciously thought-provoking questions about your place in the world. Believe us?"

Jinn and Phyllis are having a nice cosmic solar sail trip together. Away from their peers and entranced by each other's love, their trip is abruptly disturbed by an oncoming message in a bottle... literally, pieces of paper in a glass bottle sealed by cork and wax. Within the bottle is a story about Ulysse Mérou:

Ulysse is aboard a French spacecraft which leaves earth in the 2500 to undergo a 2-year subjective (350-year Earth time) mission to survey the system of Betelgeuse. Descending and frolicking upon the earth-like planet, the crew discover human inhabitants, named as the day they were born and just as dumb. The human natives abhor the crew's want of clothing, their smiling grins, their staring eyes, and their materialistic shuttle craft. With the craft destroyed, the crew go native with the native humans.

Ulysse and his idiot lover named Nova are captured by marauding gorillas and taken to a laboratory filled with cages. Afraid to reveal his true self, Ulysse begins to willingly exhibit signs of cleverness, which attracts the attention of department head Zira, a chimpanzee. When more intelligence tests are run, Ulysse is the only human smart enough to complete even the simplest of tasks. Eventually, Zira befriends Ulysse and he begins to learn their language, culture, and history. However, not everyone is convinced of the human's intelligence, such are the stubborn minds of the orangutans.

Zira and her finance Cornelius concoct a scheme with Ulysse, where as he is to reveal himself to the scientific community while the stubborn Zaius is up on the dias with him. His intelligence shown to the world of Soror, Ulyssee is able to enjoy life outside of his cage, now clothed like a common ape. But his partner Nova is still in her cage and now pregnant with his child, something which the gorillas and orangutans find very inconvenient.

I would love to have said that I read this book its native language, but I don't understand much French. While written in 1963, the book was translated into English in 1964 by Secker & Warburg. Exactly where the language faultiness lies, in the native French or the translated English, I do not know, but the language feels very dated for 1964 and especially so for 2012. Alas, hullabaloo, and hubbub among the words that often used in sentences such as: "[...] a terrifying hubbabaloo made us start up in alarm." (38) and "Without paying much attention to this hubbub [...]" (46) Then there's the old as time interjection: "Quite the contrary!" (35)

Taken with some proper grammar book sounding sentences which border on archaic, the language has a weird vibe to it, considering that the book is written as a narrative with much excitement always surrounding the protagonist: "We thus reached the region from which the shots had been heard." (40) and "I supported him in his suggestion, which eventually prevailed." (28) The wording is often as formulaic as this, which leads to passages that feel dryly scientific or lacking any sort of reflective emotion on Ulysse's part.

The narrative may be this way (1) because Ulysse's professional demeanor, as his career is as a journalist; the objective truth simply laid onto the pages for a fictional account. (2) It may be partly because of a pet notion I've been pondering since the completion of the book: it was written by a orangutan as a piece of fiction, where the story is a rehashed fictional piece but lacks the emotional narration which defines literary creativity, something which orangutans in The Monkey Planet have a difficult time mustering up.

With the pet theory behind, there are other subversions perpetrated by the author when it comes to the semi-predictable conclusion. I think Pierre Boulle was clever enough to be able to pen a seemingly simple book about (1) the simian atrocities to man in light of human atrocities to monkeys, (2) awareness of the diversity of what define as intelligence, or (3) self-imposed limitations on our nature of trust, forgiveness, and justice. If this were the case, then this passage would be the central message: "Ah, what matters this horrid material exterior! It is her soul [Zira's] that communes with mine [Ulysse's]." (169)

1961: Solaris (Lem, Stanislaw)

Emotional camouflage contrasts planetary revelations (4/5)
From April 19, 2010

This is the first Lem novel I've read, but I unfortunately own the movie tie-in with a smooching George Clooney plastered on the cover. Repressing the irksome rays of lust emitting from the cover, I dove into a novel which I had read to be much loved by science fiction enthusiasts. In lieu of Clooney cover, I place the more appreciable 1976 Berkley edition.

Solaris is one of those atmospheric novels which doesn't apply its readership to the mainstream. It's heavy with descriptive paragraphs and notational dialogue than it is on action sequences and spoken revelations. It's such a novel where the reader must pick up the nuances of the words and relationships to truly grasp the impact of the entire novel. If you're not sure what I mean, consider two unconnected movies and whether you can relate to them one way or another through their use of ambiance: Lost in Translation and Napoleon Dynamite. Both are sparse on dialogue but heavy on use of atmosphere to bring the reader/watcher in tune with the characters. In the same line, Solaris is a novel of nebulous activity where characters are at the mercy of the greater scheme of things.

Rear cover synopsis:
"When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the coean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this, and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?"

Lem's detailed descriptions of the planetary formations of Solaris are breathtaking and imaginative but occasionally drag on with imagery which is difficult to come to terms with in explanations of shape, size or even color. His views of environmental consciousness and its effect on human manipulation is one of unique insight considering its date of release- 1961. Thereafter, a number of novels have taken a similar approach in planetary awareness and living oceans: Asimov's 1989 Nemesis and Reynolds' 2000 Revelation Space among the two. The relationship of experimentation borders on diabolical--humans bombard the ocean with x-ray beams while the same offers up so-called human-like hallucinations to the scientists. The experimental effect to the ocean remains unknown to the crew but the Solaris-to-human emotional mirage has forever changed them with the new lifelike hallucinations of once known companions.

It's quite a gripping look at how a planet struggles to understand what it is to be human while the humans themselves face their own monsters. However, the occasional chapter is full of lengthy descriptions which siphon away the rich ambiance already established. The gaze outward to the planet isn't as fulfilling as the gaze inward into the minds of Solaris and Man. The strength in the novel lies internally, where you must finger through the gradual enlightening shades of emotional camouflage (as contradictory as that may sound, Lem writes it like no other).

Though not as popular as Solaris, I've managed to find two additional copies of Lem's work at a second-hand library book sale here in Bangkok: The Cyberiad (1965) and The Star Diaries (1971). I'm eager to find more, but the second-hand shelves don't abide by my suggestions.

1986: Mirrorshades- The Cyberpunk Anthology (Sterling, Bruce)

1980s stories with diverse themes and tangents (3/5)

Call is noir, call is new wave... this is Cyberpunk because that's what it says on the cover! I guess I have some misconceptions about what cyberpunk exactly entails... my first thoughts are of Johnny Mnemonic, but with the cornucopia of stories found in this anthology, themes of time travel and gothic cathedrals can sit side-to-side with drugs, rock and roll, and computerization. If you have the same misconceptions as I have regarding Cyberpunk, then you'll be in for a disappointment.

The Gernsback Continuum (1981) by William Gibson - 4/5 - An architectural photographer is hired to snap pictures of derelict Californian gas station. On his trip to the west, he experiences time-era specific hallucinations on mono-winged luxury planes, metallic shark-finned cars, and sterilely-clad perfect American couples. (11 pages) ----- The dawn of the age of science fiction (alá early sci-fi publisher Hugo Gernsback) was more than a birthing of a new genre of fiction, but also an American affection for the future. The result of the futuristic projections onto everyday objects was the production of a series a sterile-looking and backward-functioning contraptions; hence the 1980s era exhibiting none of these technophilia creations. Fast-forward 30 years from the date of this stories publication through the sci-fi era of Cyberpunk and witness the growth of society's affection for digital technology. Can the two eras' scientific visionary be comparable? When the human-machine interface becomes a reality, we'll know if Cyberpunk technology was careless or crafty.

Snake-Eyes (1986) by Tom Maddox - 4/5 - George was trained as a cerebrally wired jet fighter for the war in Thailand, but has been pulled out at the last minute. His metallic connections through his human brain pierce the underlayers of his mammalian brain and reptilian brain. When the reptilian brain is in charge, his hunger for food becomes untamed. Seeking a solution for a symbiosis with the machinery within him, George travels to an orbital which is home to Aleph, a multi-sensory artificial intelligence, which aims to subsume the human sensory suite. (22 pages) ----- The Cyberpunk obsession with being "wired in" is, at times, repetitively annoying. The characters that are wired in tend to simply interface with a computer while exchanging data at the peril of other hackers on the loose. But this sort of external danger isn't as perilous as the internal dangers Maddox writes about. The over-riding theme of Snake-Eyes is our lack of ability to control the evolutionary parts of our brain and how these same parts can be hijacked by an influencing force. The intrusive nature of the attack is commonplace in Cyberpunk, but the internal influence to this intrusiveness is what sets it apart from much of the sub-genre.

Rock On (1984) by Pat Cadigan - 2/5 - Gina is a runaway "sinner" for the big time rock band Man-O-War. When the small time Misbegottens get a hold of Gina, they plug her in to experience the organizational rock she synthesizes. At the ripe age of forty, Gina wants out of the synthesizing altogether. (8 pages) ----- What's supposed to have a punk feel to it, Rock On comes off feeling more like grunge, which sprung to regional fame a few years later. I don't see rock or punk music as an attribute to Cyberpunk, but when listeners socket into the music which is produced from a human synthesizer who sockets in to produce the music, then both sides of music production takes on the distinctive Cyberpunk feel. Music aside, the story also has a very loose writing style to it, sort of like grunge fashion--slapped together and baggy. Where most Cyberpunk offers an awing element to the digital divide, Pat Cadigan misses the point of highlighting and expounding upon humanity's place in the digitization of their culture and their being--too short for its own good.

Tales of Houdini (1983) by Rudy Rucker - 2/5 - Houdini is kidnapped by a rabbi, a priest, and a judge before being put to an escapist attempt by falling from a plane while being wrapped in Ace bandages. Of course he lives... to only be kidnapped again, and again. True to Houdini form, he escapes and worries his mother. (7 pages) ----- Not sure how this is Cyberpunk at all, but I guess the looseness of Cadigan's writing style can be stretched to encompass the looseness of Rucker's short story theme. Rucker, too, is guilty of shooting from the hip with his grungy writing--snippy, odd, and wandering. Bruce Sterling described this story as "brief but perfectly constructed fantasy" and yes, it is brief... thankfully.

400 Boys (1983) by Marc Laidlaw - 1/5 - Hidden in a basement, a group of boys are sheltered from the rampage of destruction the giants are throwing in the bloc above. Once free of their reign of terror, the group seeks other groups in the city to challenge the tyranny of the four hundred giant boys. (16 pages) ----- Taking the term "noir" to the next level, how exactly this is cyberpunk is beyond me. If Cyberpunk acts an umbrella title for weird fiction, then this would fit perfectly, I guess. The gritty city full of gritty groups composed of gritty boys, so while the dark element of cyberpunk is there, the whole "cyber" part of the story is as absent as it was in Rucker's previous story. I've always hated the term "noir" as it's simply a stick that you can wave at any story and, presto!, you have yourself an artistic sub-genre of fiction.

Solstice (1985) by James Patrick Kelly - 3/5 - Tony Cage designs psychotropic and other radical drugs for the international consumer market. After spending a few years in cryogenic suspension, he reunites with his adult female clone self to experience the summer solstice at Stonehenge along her his clone's boyfriend. Cage has plans to expose the boyfriend's ill-intended attention upon his clone by sharing some of his new drug with them, Share. (39 pages) ----- Introducing a gothic theme in parallel with psychopharmacology, Sterling keeps introducing new themes from each story under that wonderfully broad 1980s umbrella theme of Cyberpunk. Somnolent, hallucinogenic, stimulant, or analgesic additives to Cage's cornucopia of specific state drugs adds contrasting or heightening effects to each of his drugs, which have a scientific basis for altering reality, something which the cyberpunk genre is interested in through virtual reality, but not so much drug-induced reality.

Petra (1982) by Greg Bear - 3/5 - The flesh and stone son of a cathedral statue and a nun considers himself to be a historian. The flesh children below are school by the self-proclaimed bishop while the flesh and stone hybrids are given the sanctioned off rafters above. Nimble enough to navigate the numerous crevices and tunnels, the boy knows the cathedral better than most, and is the only one to have met the bridge playing Stone Christ is the basement. (20 pages) ----- Continuing with the obvious gothic theme, Sterling includes Greg Bear into this anthology for posterity, as he was one of the better science fiction writers during the 1980s and this was, oddly, one of his more esoteric and fantasy-like short stories. No computers and no drugs, this story is about life within a cathedral after the night when statues started to come alive... how this is Cyberpunk, I haven't a clue.

Till Human Voices Wake Us (1984) by Lewis Shiner - 3/5 - Campbell is diving with his wife of 18 years near an isolated island owned by a global company. He witnesses what he thinks is a mermaid, snaps a photo, but doesn't mention it to anyone. Later that night, he sees a woman who looks remarkably like the mermaid. When he sends his film for processing, he wonders if the biologist woman has ties to the creature under the sea. (14 pages) ----- A slow, minor mystery with a slight fantasy element turns into a not-so-surprising conclusion with a biology twist... just enough to render it Cyberpunk in the undiscerning eyes of Sterling. This is much more of a mainstream story unbridled to any sub-genre, let alone a break through 1980s sub-genre such as Cyberpunk. Decent, but of minor interest.

Freezone (1985) by John Shirley - 4/5 - Rickenharp's band plays rock music... real, honest to god rock music. It's not a trendy and it's not generally liked, but on the night the band decides to call it quits they also play their last gig... and it rocks. Rickenharp sits on the cusp of idleness and greatness as he spies a luscious chick with a "blue mesc" line. Yearning for the flesh attached to the line, Rickenharp befriends her two male companions who are eager to escape the pursuit of unnamed enemies. (39 pages) ----- THIS is the cyberpunk I was looking for! Combining the flavors of rock music, drug-infused adventure lust, and exotically dressed denizens aboard a floating platform off the coast of Morocco, the infusion is lush but a tad too long. With a collection where stories average 18 pages each, this lengthier 39-paged story feels drawn out, regardless of its perfect composition of cyberpunk elements.

Stone Lives (1985) by Paul Di Filippo - 5/5 - Stone lives in abject poverty in the Bronx Jungle (the Bungle) without sight, after having his eyes ripped from their sockets by organ thieves. He's succumbed to a life of misery and destitution, but a chance encounter with Immigration has his world spun around when he is offered a Rating-1 assignment rather than the lowly Rating-10 assignment which his fellow slum dwellers despondently accept. The promise of a new set of digital eyes with varied capabilities enthuses Stone, who is assigned the task of recording life in situ. (24 pages) ----- Sloughing off the cyberpunk association with gothic and rock themes, Sterling delivers the reader a beauty of a story through the enhanced eyes of a poverty dweller--combining the themes of gritty urban life with biomechanical improvement. Where most cyberpunk stories peripherally include these themes, the author has tightly woven these two threads into a story which not only captures the essence of Cyberpunk, but also sculpts a humanistic character within the confines of a society bent on disassociation and inequality.

Red Star, White Orbit (1983) by Bruce Sterling & William Gibson - 4/5 - Colonel Korolev is the famed Soviet cosmonaut who first walked on Mars but is now aging in the micro-gravity of Soviet orbital; his bones decalcified and his superficial injuries from a blowout layer his skin. His legacy to the space program lines his own walls and his life, as he knows it, is within the orbital. When rumor of the orbital's decommission spring forth, Korolev leads a small resistance against the military's plans. (21 pages) ----- A story which should be a supernova of cyberpunk considered its two authors, but it's actually a simple tale of decommission in space, space weapons, and solar power technology. The additional element of American atmospheric solar balloons is greatly left without detail, something which definitely should have been a major focus.

Mozart in Mirrorshades (1985) by Bruce Sterling & Lewis Shiner - 3/5 - A portal to the 18th century of a parallel earth is established so petrochemicals and works of art can be sent forward in time. Some of the historical citizens, like Mozart and Marie Antoinette, are happy with the newly fangled contraptions, ideas, music, and food of the 20th century, but others, like Thomas Jefferson, are distrust the futurists' meddling in their affairs. (17 pages) ----- I guess if a silly story like Tales of Houdini can be included in a cyberpunk anthology, then why not a time travel story? With time traveling as its only link to the science fiction genre, Mozart in Mirrorshades focuses on how the meddlesome time travelers change the lifestyle of the people residing in the 18th century. It's quirky to see how the characters shrug off their noble ways for the freedoms found in Turkish hash, rock and roll music, mopeds, radios, and color television.

1980: Galaxy- The Best of My Years (Baen, James)

Optimistic essays and opalescent stories (5/5)
From October 18, 2010

Of the twelve headings inside The Best of My Years, there are only seven short stories along with an intro, andoutro, and three essays. Baen himself had said that science fiction at the time of 1980 was at the start of a New Wave of SF. Niven and Varley were spearheading that new wave but still dragged with them the entrails of the sixties and early seventies science fiction aura. The likes of Greg Bear, David Brin, William Gibson, and Niven truly heralded the New Wave era of SF, whether documented across the broader scheme of SF literature or not; it's merely an opinion based on my observations of decadal transitions (60s to 70s to 80s and thereon).

The Best of My Years definitely fits the 70s era of science fiction to a T. With subject matter of cryogenics and Bussard ramjets taking up much of the short story plots and article length, the topics ring true of a large number of the same decade. It's not to the point of saturation but just enough the glaze over the soft fluffy doughnut of the SF during ninth decade of the twentieth century.

Baen: Myth of the Light Barrier (introduction) - 4/5 - A lean, mean stab at what the anthology encompasses and what the editor is driving hard at. 2 pages

Asimov: Is There Hope for the Future (essay) - 4/5 - Has the same resonance of the Foundation series, socialism and utopianism. Like science fiction as a whole, if the future is being written about, the author is optimistic that humankind DOES have a future. Asimov agrees very much so. 21 pages

LeGuin: The Day Before the Revolution (story) - 4/5 - A nearly invalid revolutionary leader relives the days of her love for her mentor while still orchestrating his master plan of worldwide provincial revolt. While not a big fan of LeGuin, I did like the intricate emotion of elderly Laila and the staccato prose of a mind slipping away. 21 pages

Anderson: Out Many Roads to the Stars (essay) - 4/5 - Focusing on effects of near-light speed, Anderson pulls out some equations and tables to emphasize the wow-factor of the attainable interstellar spacecraft. Seeing these relativistic phenomena reaffirms my belief that we currently aren't as tech savvy as we may believe. 21 pages

Pohl & Kornbluth: The Gift of Garigolli (story) - 5/5 - Sentient micro-aliens in a mans body attempt to observe human society through his eyes and even try to repay him for his help, but the exponential size difference is hampering the effort. Always a fan of Pohl cheekier novels, this does not disappoint with an evident passion for silliness and coherent randomness (huh?). 34 pages

Saberhagen: Birthdays (story) - 5/5 - A 13-year old boy wakes one day upon a starship to be told he must be a parent to twenty-four new born children only to be put asleep the same day and to be awoken exactly one year later to parent the babies again. Why this is happening is a mystery to him and the soon to be adults. I've never read anything by Saberhagen before, but this out-of-the-blue story really impressed me takes the cake for best story. 59 pages

Varley: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (story) - 3/5 - A jumble of school lessons, advertising, book chapters, commands and correspondence finds Fingal confronting his own "What is reality?" which is done better than most of the stories which tackle the same question. I found the story a little fun but I really haven't liked much of the Varley I've read with the exception of his short story Air Raid. 44 pages

Sheffield: The Long Chance (story) - 4/5 - A composer loses his wife to a disease and chooses to cryogenically keep her until the day they can both be reunited and while he can't live with the agony, decides to also freeze himself for the future. Now that he has been awakened millennia in the future, will he be as happy as he thought? A very good stab at the cryogenic story line and probably one of the best corpsicle plots out there. 29 pages

Niven: Down and Out (story) - 4/5 - An earlier version of Rammer (found in World Out of Time), where Corbell escapes earthly The State on his Bussard ramjet towards the galactic center only to find himself eventually hounded the consoled by his once enemy Pierce. A good, typical Niven strewn with comical situations, good science background and a mind treat of a story. 32 pages

Pournelle: That Buck Rogers Stuff (essay) - 3/5 - Pournelle lets the ball roll with what the future may hold for humankind's expansion in the solar system, very optimistic and very well represented in his novel Exiles to Glory. 15 pages

Zelazny: The Game of Dust and Blood (story) - 4/5 - A supernatural game of playing with humankind's history by alternatively changing three events in human record. A fun look a different kind of alternative history story but as I'm not a history buff I couldn't really grasp the full meaning behind Zelazny's choices. 6 pages

Baen: Galaxy and the Galaxy (outro) - 3/5 - A simple reiteration of articles with a sprinkling of other mentions which Baen considered noteworthy and finishing the conclusion off with what Baen's expectations of what future submissions ought to look like. 6 pages

1968: Hawksbill Station (Silverberg, Robert)

Silverberg's BEST... which doesn't say much (3/5)

I've never liked Silverberg.
Regarding his novels:
The Alien Years (1998)... hated it.
The World Inside (1971)... hated it.
Those Who Watch (1967)... hated that, too.

Regarding his short stories:
The Red Blaze is the Morning in the New Legends Anthology (1995)... didn't care for it.
Hot Times in Magma City in the Year's Best SF (1995)... didn't care for it.
The Sixth Palace in Deep Space: 2 (1973)... didn't care for that, either.

So, while I'm able to stomach his short stories to a small degree, I've hated every Silverberg novel I've touched. To say "Hawksbill Station is THE BEST Silverberg ever produced!" is not doing the novel any favors. I've tried to like Silverberg's previous novels and stories, but I always end up disliking them. The same goes for Hawksbill Station... with plenty of praise doused upon it by Joachim Boaz, I was finally stricken with guilt at my distaste for Silverberg so I paid $2.50 for the book and read it. This one is for you, fellow blogger extraordinaire.

Rear cover synopsis:
"Exiled to an unborn Earth. They had fought a life-crushing 21st century dictatorship, and now they were witness to the dawn of life itself. Bitter witnesses. For they were political prisoners, exiled forever behind a billion year-high wall of Time--sent "one way" to the grey slab shorelines of a barren Earth before life had begun its long climb from the sea to the stars. A lifeless world was their prison, and there was no way back. And then one day the stranger came..."

In the solemn year of 1984 when the constitutional crisis ended with the syndicalist capitalists takeover ("McKinley capitalism and Roosevelt socialism" [69]), dissent sprung up in both mild forms and extremist forms. The protagonist Barrett was one of the milder mannered attendees, only attending the meeting to meet the girls. With enough time dedicated to the movement, Barrett eventually dedicated himself to the dissent. When his sleazy tramp-cum-girlfriend is arrested and unheard from in 1994, Barrett continued his mild dissent, albeit at a higher level with more responsibilities, against the undemocratic government until 2006, when he was arrested, detained, and interrogated. His life then on became dedicated not to dissent, but to living life in a barren landscape where only insanity and slow death are the enemies.

In a rather generically scripted future with automatic cars, 3-D television, supersonic air transport, population control, weather control, a Mars colony, and a lunar resort, the famous mathematician named Hawksbill has created a time machine (in operation since 2004). However, this machine is only reported to be a one-way trip... and what better way to use a time machine than to simply send political prisoners a billions years in the past to the late Cambrian era where troglodytes reign the seas and the prisoners can do no harm to the evolutionary ladder:

"The government was too civilized to put men to death for subversive activities, and too cowardly to let them remain alive and at large. The compromise was the living death of Hawksbill Station. A billion years of impassable time was suitable insulation even for the more nihilistic ideas." (36)

Come to the year 2029 and the population of the primordial prison stands at one hundred forty with one-third of the prisoners succumbing to their personal psychoses. Barrett has become the leader of the chronologically desolate gulag, one who organizes men to scout for mis-shipped crates of food and materials. Losing the full mobility of his legs due to an avalanche, Barrett has become more steadfast in his hopes for the Cambrian colony, a desire which supplants his treasonous aim of governmental reform. After a six-month absence of new prisoner arrivals, a stranger arrives at the camp. A self-pronounced economist with little more to say than a simple nod and a notably empty reservoir of knowledge regarding economics and political resistance, little warning signs are piquing the accusatory eye of Barrett.

Hawksbill Station has a very similar theme to Brian Aldiss's Cryptozoic, where Silverberg's was published in 1968, Aldiss's was published in 1967. Silverberg's novella Hawksbill Station was published in August of 1967 while Aldiss's was published in October. Which author was the first to pen the idea of a totalitarian government with time travel to primordial earth (Silverberg = late Cambrian / Aldiss = pre-Cambrian)? There are obvious similarities but also drastic differences.

There are two parts to this story which capture my imagination: the penal servitude in the desolate past (draw comparisons to Dostoevsky's Memoirs from the House of the Dead or Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago) and the form of government Silverberg calls syndicalist capitalism (as a registered Socialist, of course it would interest me). However, neither are described to a great degree and merely serve as a backdrop for the existence of temporally distant political gulag. Exactly WHY this sort of prison is BEST for the prisoners is left untouched (besides the single paragraph explanation above). And the descriptions of the barren lands of the late Cambrian period are glanced over, mentioning some soil here, lots of rock everywhere, and the expansive ocean just over there.

The actual Hawksbill Station plays second fiddle to the tribulations of Barrett. The novel alternates chapters from life at the Station and the rise of Barrett's career as a dissident. His shallow relationship with his girlfriend is a mere footnote of interest, as all female characters in Silverberg novels tend to be. Barrett's almost feigning interest in the revolution doesn't draw him out to be the powerful type, but his ability to handle interrogation, detention, ans sensory deprivation are admirable. Regardless of this, he is still sent back in time to live the remainder of his life on the expansive flats of volcanic rock, a home which he will reign as king over troglodytes and treasonous male revolutionary castaways.

A minor gripe in Hawksbill but my main gripe with the author (but noteworthy because of its recurring nature in everything Silverberg has penned) is his treatment of women as characters... or as cows: things to name and forget about minutes later, or as objects: things to place in the plot as mentions of rape (three times) and breasts (four times) can be wantonly written into the story (to garner interest from teenage boys?), or as a catalyst for excitement: pheromone-laden hussies to give climax to the plot (and conveniently, to the men, too). Call it his spice to every plot or his twist to every story, but it's the main reason I don't willingly read ANY Silverberg. Again, to say that Hawksbill is the BEST thing Silverberg has ever written is to say that everything else he has written in on par with or below a three-star rating, in my opinion.

With my gripe complete and my review of Hawksbill finalized, I can put to rest your (pointing the finger) one hope of turning me into a Silverberg fan. Sorry... but you have to admit that the plot synopsis I provided it quite good!