1969: The Avengers of Carrig (Brunner, John)

Excellent narrative weaving, obvious conclusion (4/5)

I’ve now read as many Brunner novels as there are in the English alphabet—for the less literate, that number is twenty-six—, nineteen of which are still on my shelves. That’s a pretty good keep-rate: better than A.E. van Vogt (6 of 10), a lot better than Frederik Pohl (9 of 18) and a hell of a lot better than Jack McDevitt (2 of 10) and Robert Silverberg (1 of 5). I’m a sucker for Brunner but he’s not infallible. This is my chief worry—that I may pick up a dud—whenever I chose to read a new Brunner novel; though the disappointment rate is low, it’s like a sword through my chest each time. The cover and synopsis of The Avengers of Carrig felt like the tip of that sword was already piecing the skin, waiting to be plunged hilt-deep.

Rear cover synopsis:

“Once the city of Carrig stood supreme on this planet that had been settled by space refugees in the distant, forgotten past. From every corner of this primitive lost world caravans came to trade—and to view the great King-Hunt, the gruesome test by which the people of Carrig chose their rulers.

Then from space came new arrivals. And with them came their invincible death guns and their ruthless, all-powerful tyranny.

Now there would be no King-Hunt in Carrig, or hope for the planet-unless a fool-hardy high-born named Saikmar and a beautiful Earthling space-spy named Maddalena, could do the impossible…”

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The inaptly named planet Fourteen is one of many populated by the displaced people of a once known system named Zarathustra. When that system’s sun exploded eight hundred years ago, a diaspora on an epic scale flung its people across all of space in hopes that they could settle new planets and have fresh beginnings. Earth and its Corps Galactica have known about the planet’s fate and have been safekeeping the population of each from marauding pirates bent on forcing them into slavery. The inhabits worlds from the Zarathustra diaspora tend to be backwater simple places with flourishing trade routes pulled by indigenous animals and a social hierarchy topped by kings and lords. When left untouched, each planet would have developed its own culture, its own technology, and its own destiny; when zealous marauders bring their superior technology to such a place, they tend to make themselves kings.

The yearly king-hunt in the planet’s largest city, Carrig, is a festival where the winner becomes the “legal lord of Carrig” (40). The status of Lord is the highest attainable title available to the people of Carrig with the title of King reserved for the winged creature which resides in the steamy, pocked landscape of the volcanic mountain range near Carrig. In the king-hunt, manned gliders take to the sky riding the currents of warm air in order to battle with the parradile (a pterodactyl-like creature), the King of which is the largest. When someone eventually strikes it down, he becomes the new Lord.

For the last eighteen years, no one has been able to slay the King—an unheard of streak which raises the suspicion of many participants. The most hopeful participant in the nearly king-hunt is Saikmar son of Corrie, a cherubic-faced man most favored by bookies in the city. Rumor is that the current Lord has been spiking soporific drinks for the most favored hunter, so Saikmar vigilant in the lead-up to the hunt. The Lord has a touch of guilt for having let the King grow too large to kill and for allowing himself to reign for the last eighteen years, so he will allow the hunt to continue without his intervention, a move which will usher in a new Lord, supplanting him.

As the participants gather, Saikmar stands proud. However, one man who had recently come to the city in a caravan—coinciding with the murder of its head trader and the burning of his house—one man seems more arrogant than all the others. Claiming himself to be a southerner, none are convinced of the interlopers origin, but the rules allow outsiders to participate in the king-hunt. As the king-hunt commences, excitement grips the city of Carrig as the King swoops from its cave—the king-hunt has just begun… until a white glider-shaped vehicle shoots down the King with one strike of its fierce lightening weapon. The King has been slain and a new Lord must be crowned.

 An Corps agent on Planet Fourteen—the same trader who was killed by the “southerners”—has been out of contact for a while, so Corps decide to send a replacement. Maddalena Santos may be one the smartest recruits of her base, but she also has one the most displeasing attitudes, making her an outcast even amid her colleagues. When Commandant Brzeska needs to choose one of his crew for the solitary mission, Maddalena’s poor attitude and her knownledge of languages make her he perfect candidate. She and Patrol Major Langenschmidt jump across space to Planet Fourteen, but are instantly attacked by a trigger-happy pilot in orbit which sends the two of them and their craft crashing to the ground. Having ejected, Maddalena trudges through the snow in search of shelter or Langernschmidt… whichever comes first.

Meanwhile, Saikmar is depressed about this stolen chance to win the king-hunt for his clan. Thinking himself a refugee, he flees Carrig for a winter’s stay at a northern sanctuary built into well-aged hull of the diaspora which had brought them to the planet they now call home. Before the sanctuary seals itself for the winter, Saikmar climbs in the frigid hills where he find a solitary parradile making itself a nest. Native to the tropical south and the steamy Smoking Hills of Carrig, the parradile is unaccustomed to a winter. Each day, he visits the beast; normally, the parradiles are feared for taking children and cattle, but this parradile is different—it exhibits intelligence. One day, Saikmar discovers the parradile had brought back a beautiful woman, who the parradile had saved from the lethal cold.

Flown back to the sanctuary by the parradile, the two settle in for the long winter. Maddaladen concocts a story about being from the south, but not everyone is sure of her origins. She is curious to find the ship’s reactors still working, creating channels of steam for heating and cooking. When she finds a passageway leading to a reactor-warmed room, she sees an ancient device used for making nutritional food in bulk. Savvy with such technology, the machine starts after centuries of disrepair, much to the reverent amazement of the sanctuary’s head priestess, Nyloo. When things begin to settle down, one event shocks them more than the rediscovery of food processing—the coming of the same mountain parradile.

Truth eventually reaches the Corps: The victor with amazing powers is actually a citizen of another system (Cyclops) who making slaves of Planet Fourteen in order to mine the heavy metals from the Smoking Hills, which he and his cohorts ship back to their planet. Combining their knowledge, Saikmar and Maddaladen unhatch a plan to bring down the nefarious Lord, but he might usurp himself from this throne with his poor understanding of the local people; they EXPECT a king-hunt every year and the new Lord is unwilling to fulfill their demands—anyway, he had already chased out all the parradiles because of their interfering with his mining. Either way, his end is near.

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There are two aspects to this novel which, in many other instances, usually turn me off: (1) the medieval way of the life of the townsfolk, the importance of the titles such as Lord, and anything that resembles a dragon/pterodactyl; and (2) the far-reaching strength of a central organization tasked with secretly maintaining that statuses of entire planets. The former is often shared with many fantasy novels and the latter often found in early pulp SF; combine the two and the result should be unreadable—not so.

The weave of the two stories—Saikmar and Maddaladen—is a little too coincidental for the story’s length. Their meeting felt forced, but the unfolding of the story from the halfway point on is quite good, a pace matched with Fourteen’s history, more background about the Zarathustra diaspora, more depth to the culture of the Carrig, and an interesting turn of events regarding the parradiles. So, if the reader can ignore the coincidental affairs, the rest of the book is an excellent course of events… until the conclusion, which felt obvious every step of the way.

The Avengers of Carrig is the second book in a three-book series which explores the diaspora of Zarathustra through the eyes of three cultures of those affected. The first book in the series, Polymath (1974), highlights one ship’s inability to cope with the settlement on their new planet, even with the polymath on aboard. The third novel, The Repairmen of Cyclops (1965), I haven’t read it but it MAY crossover with some of the information about Cyclops found in The Avengers of Carrig: the planet has a very poor content of heavy metals and relies on imported metals from the asteroids and from other systems, yet without the metals they must make due… something along those lines.

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I haven’t had the pleasure of reading “Secret Agent of Terra” (1962) from which this book is expanded. At least the novel-length version of the story has a better title! This is yet another addition to my ever expanding Brunner library, one of which will eventually, fingers crossed, come across all of Brunner’s greats and no more of his dreary flops… again, fingers crossed because, even as one of his biggest fans, I know Brunner isn’t immune from producing drivel.

1979: Alien (Foster, Alan Dean)

Faithful novelization with poor pacing (4/5)

Having loved reading science fiction for a full seven years, one would suspect the reviewer of also loving science fiction movies; here, one would be incorrect to a great degree. Generally, I really don’t like many science fiction movies for a number of reasons: (1) over-glamorizing the science-y aspect, (2) injecting cheesy Hollywood drama, (3) rehashing so many SF clichés, (4) interweaving the genre with fantasy or the paranormal, (5) pushing the movie toward more action than substance, (6) featuring Tom Cruise or (7) basing the movie on some lame premise. Good science fiction movies are far and few between.

One movie stands out among all others for its original blend of science fiction and horror, action and substance, quality and appeal, and timelessness. To be blunt, Alien scared the shit of me when I was young; even now it sets my nerves on end (genuine horror or nostalgia, you be the judge). Considering that the story is now thirty-five years old and still haunts the memories of past impressionable minds… only Star Wars (I may never say this again) can be compared to its impression. For me, Alien, to this day, epitomizes an excellent science fiction movie plot (obviously without regard for social science fiction—give me flamethrowers, aliens and spaceships!).

Call is nostalgia if you like, but when a fan of Alien and science fiction literature, like myself, picks up a novelization of a movie, you can bet that the expectations are high and fuelled purely by nostalgia. Thanks to Alan Dean Foster’s fine prose and perspective, the novelization of Alien reflects the movie very closely. Although I didn’t almost pee my pants, my eyes did remain glued on the pages, all 218 pages of which I consumed in one day.

Amen.

I read the Omnibus edition (Warner, 1993), so the page numbers may differ from the cover featured (Titan Books, 2014).

 

Movie tagline:

“In space no one can hear your scream.”

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Light-years from Earth, the deep-space commercial tug Nostromo slides through the featureless void of subspace with two billion tons of crude oil. As the automatic refinery processes the oil, seven dreamers lay in their cryogenic chambers and Mother, the ship’s artificial intelligence, watches over them like its name suggests. When Mother detects something like a distress signal, it puts the Nostromo and its crew on a course to investigate the source of the signal. The crew is awoken.

Unbeknownst to the crew aside from the captain/pilot Dallas, their three-month journey home should have landed them in Earth’s orbit with the blue marble itself gracing their view screens. When they are unable to locate Earth or even contact traffic control, Ripley, the ship’s warrant officer, discovers that they are in fact in the system of Zeta II Reticuli. Dallas informs everyone of the beacon broadcast, a non-standard signal almost certainly of alien origin. The science officer, Ash, confers with Mother on a number of possibilities but it’s Ripley, again, who discovers that the distress beacon is actually a quarantine warning. Ripley begins to doubt Ash’s position among the crew and his loyalty to their humanity.

Ripley takes the ship down to the surface of the planet, which is nearly as dense as Earth but much smaller and covered in an inhospitable atmosphere choked with dust. It’s this dust which clogs intakes, overheats engines, and creates fires in power cells. Landing, the ship is in obvious need of repair while a team of three—Dallas, Kane and Lambert—venture through the yellow dusty mist to While Ash, Ripley and the two engineers, Brett and Parker, stay aboard the Nostromo, the latter two begrudgingly make repairs and bitch about not receiving full shares, the three who ventured forth discover the source of the signal: a giant, u-shaped craft held at a precarious angle on the planet’s surface.

The huge derelict alien craft has three open ports which Dallas, Kane and Lambert access and discover the physical source of the beacon. Curiosity gets the best of them and they attempt to explore the depths of the ship. Having set up a winch, Kane is lowered through an interior channel where he discovers a vast cavern he assumes to be a storage room. The oppressive heat of the cave causes him discomfort and the well-organized leathery sacs cause him confusion. In an ignorant attempt to pry one open, he succeeds and is gripped by the unwelcome embrace of a facehugger. When Dallas and Lambert reel him back up, the unsightly spider alarms them and they flee back to the ship with Kane in tow.

Ripley is unwilling to allow the three-man team back into the ship for fear of xenological contamination; even with the commands and threats of Dallas, Ripley does not open the exterior hatch, but Ash does comply, going against all protocols of decontamination. With Kane supine on the autodoc, Ash probes the facehugger with an assortment of tools, only to discover that it uses an extremely acidic defense mechanism—its blood dissolves linen, plastic and even the metal of the hull. Seeing facehugger regenerate its wound, the only option is to let it remain on Kane’s face for fear of either killing him via the parasite or destroying the ship via the corrosive blood.

Brett and Parker complete their arduous task of fixing a number of systems and prepare the ship to leave the planet and dock with its massive cargo of oil in order to return to Earth. Meanwhile, Ash watches over Kane and calls the crew to come observe two sequential events at the autodoc: (1) the facehugger detached itself from Kane’s face and is not lifeless and (2) Kane’s recent recovery, who has symptoms of amnesia and a ravenous hunger, but he physically appears to be in fine form. Homeward bound, the crew look forward to ten months of cryo-sleep and decide to share one last meal together. Kane’s three-meal hunger is interrupted by a pain in his chest, the cause of which bursts through his chest and scurries off to hide, a grotesque creature covered in Kane’s organs and blood.

The shocked crew decide it can’t exactly kill the creature because of its corrosive blood, so a method of shocking and netting the little creature is started. They have one week to capture it and send it out the airlock before the ships runs out of oxygen and before they return to cryo-sleep to await for their return to Earth. As they hunt for the creature with electronic trackers, Brett is assigned to recover Jones—the ship’s cat—but ends up being taken by the alien which stalks the air ducts. Both Ripley and Parker observe the alien’s incredible strength as it lifted Brett clear off the floor. As they cat had fled the equipment bay during the attack on Brett, so too do Ripley and Parker run away from the scene of fear.

Realizing that rods of electricity were not going to tame the alien predator stalking their lives, they upgrade their weapons to flamethrowers and remain convinced that they must corral the creature toward an airlock, where they can eject the fearsome hunter into the vacuum of space. After Dallas’s unexpected death, the five remaining crew are skittish to every susurrus or scrape made within the Nostromo. Parker is the first to warn Ripley of the alien’s location next to an airlock. From her console, she starts the sequence to close the airlock; the alien is mesmerized by the flashing green warning light, but when someone triggers the klaxon, the alien drops out of the lock, gets its arm stuck in the closing door and flees from the scene, knocking over Parker in the process.

The acid of its amputated limb corrodes the metal of the door; air leaks through the hole causing a hull breach. The crew panic and struggle to regain control of their precious atmosphere. When the incident comes under control, Ripley is the first to ramp up her suspicions of Ash; she consults Mother with the following query: IS ASH PROTECTING THE ALIEN? Is one man at fault in the Nostromo for the travesty unleashed, or is the Company—concerned for the matters of “maximizing profit, minimizing loss” (200)—the prime culprit?

Yet, the alien, a “perfectly organized organism” (203), continues to stalk the remaining crew.

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From my memory, I presume the novelization of Alien to be faithful to the movie. The one aspect of the book which doesn’t make the movie is the pace; at the half-way point through the novel, Ash and Dallas discover the facehugger had detached itself from Kane’s face.

The first half of the novelization feels bloated with dialogue between the engineers Brett and Parker. There are sections where the reader is dragged through their technical conversations about power cells, welding, striping components, and replacing modules. The stodgy dialogue characterizes the disgruntled duo but adds very little to the plot. Perhaps it’s also an attempt to characterize the Nostromo as a sympathetic cause. While the name Nostromo lives well in our memories of science fiction—“This is Ripley … warrant-officer, last survivor of the commercial starship Nostromo, signing of this entry” (217-218)—no one really sympathizes with the ship… only the circumstances within the ship.

One sensation was captured beautifully in Foster’s novelization, which matches my memories of the movie: the sense of fear doesn’t rest in the physical sight of the alien, but in knowing that it’s there, anywhere. Just as the alien is occasionally glimpsed in the film, Foster pens a few brief scenes where only portions of the alien are visible to the crew: its arms tearing Parker from the floor, its hand pulling Dallas through the grating, its tail bobbing near the airlock, its arm stuck in the airlock door, its head peering through the glass of Ripley’s closet door. Here in the novelization, the fearsome alien is never seen in its entirety—only the innate fear of the creature is visible in the crew’s desperate attempts to drive it from their ship, their home.

Which brings to mind a famous JFK quote: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. To the reader, this means that the characters’ fear is the catalyst for the reader’s fear, not the manifestation of the fearful object. While the alien may scare them witlessly when their in its terrible presence, the lurking fear of its arrival and their death is their prime sense of hopelessness.

Because of the long introduction with all the technical dialogue, the conclusion is rather abrupt. The action sequences in the book weren’t as well paced as the movie, resulting in jittery scenes of flight or fight. The key scene of Ripley’s frustration with the self-destruction mechanism isn’t highlighted in the novelization—it’s given a cursory mention. That was one scene in the movie where my memory is the most vivid: the elaborate self-destruct sequence and the impending doom from the well modulated, comforting voice of Mother.

Thankfully, the novelization doesn’t self-destruct. Foster’s prose is occasionally eloquent and his choice of vocabulary interesting. Of course there are the occasional deeper insights into the functioning of the Nostromo or further depth to characters, but nothing is errant. On the technical side, there’s only one flaw concerning the Doppler effect and the speed of light: “The Nostromo achieved, exceeded the speed of light … Stars ahead of them became blue, those behind shifted red” (128): if you exceed the speed of light, there is no light to shift.

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Back in 2007, Alien was my 22nd novel of the year. Later, Aliens was the 60th novel of the year and Alien 3 was the 101st (busy year of reading that was!). Now, seven years later, I’m on an eight-day holiday all alone and I will do the honor of reading the three books in sequence (along with some additional horror short stories). I may be scared of the dark during the next few days.

1995: Limbo Search (Godwin, Parke)

All work and no play make them a dull crew (4/5)

Eons ago, I remember browsing historical fiction authors online while looking for one that might interest me. Having read only of smattering of SF, I settled upon some familiar authors: Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) and Poul Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years (1989). I’ve never been one very interested in studying history, so I wasn’t bowled over by the sub-genre of speculative fiction and wasn’t keen on venturing further in with authors like Harry Turtledove or Parke Godwin (pretty much the only two names I could recall from the sub-genre). While I was browsing Elite Bookstore (now selling mainly Japanese titles) in Bangkok, I spotted one of Godwin’s few science fiction titles: Limbo Search. Though the colors and composition of the cover were appalling, I bought and filed it on my shelves reluctant to peer into its chapters.

Rear cover synopsis:

“A CRY FOR HELP

A bloodied veteran of Limbo Search, it is Charley Stoner’s job to protect unmanned planets from deadly corporate exploitation. Until now, nothing has ever gone beyond the range of his considerable experience… Until now.

A WARNING

A mysterious, distorted message has been intercepted from the impossible blackness of empty, alien space—beckoning Stoner and an untested crew toward the dangerous uncertainty of entity invasion.

AN INVITATION

Combat readiness has been activated. All that is known must be abandoned. Hydri IV Search Mission is underway, moving Stoner and his raw trainees forward on the incredible adventure they only dreamed—and feared—was possible.”

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Earth’s corporations are exploitive when it comes to new resources—namely, new virgin planets. Rather than allowing each mega-corporation full freedom to ravage the planets of their precious metals, UNESA (United Earth Space Authority) has set up listening stations around Earth’s galactic neighborhood to eavesdrop on the corporations’ chatter. One such station, Limbo Search, is placed around Hydri Beta; though the Corporations haven’t yet surveyed, let alone exploit, the planets of the system, Limbo Search keeps a polyglottic ear to the sky: English, Mandarin, Russian, French and Hispanic Complex.

While all search crew aboard listening stations must be multi-lingual and abstain from the vices of alcohol, tobacco and sex, Charley Stoner’s (Warrant Officer) station of Limbo Search only has the former requirement. Alcohol and tobacco are not condoned but can be found about while relationships on the mixed-sex on the station are a tepid affair spoilt by the nature of the stressful job. Pairing off is almost a formality and making any sort of future plans (be they on the station or on Mars) borders on taboo.

Rather than finding chatter between corporations, their survey ships and Earth, Limbo Search intercepts an alien signal from the planet of Hydri IV. The strange signal has dual harmonics and sounds like the lowed pitch of two singers crossing through resonance and dissonance. The ground-based transmission station is difficult to pin down at their distance so Stoner sends a Search Mission to the planet to triangulate the transmission. However, around the planet and coming out of sub-space is a gigantic alien ship. It simply sits there; the crew of the Search Mission wait for their deaths but realize that something is wrong with the ship. It doesn’t respond to any form of hail nor does it strike them dead; one crew member posits that the alien sub-space engine malfunctioned and the alien crew are disabled.

Much like the half-hearted love life on Limbo Search, the division between UNESA and the Corporation is blurred by time. Intelligence Officer Pauley, aboard Limbo Search, is eventually made privy to the fact that there is a corporate mole on the station. Though Pauley initially fingers Beaudry as the suspect because of his atypical flawless background, Pauley's senior (Waites) informs him that the innocuous Vietnamese-ethnic Thun. Pauley goes forward with the Waites' plan to rid themselves of the mole even though Pauley himself was certain Beaudry was the odd man out. Waites stands to the side, amused.

Meanwhile, amid the mild yet invasive turbulence of love and deceit, the land-based alien signal intermittently broadcasts and one fact becomes clear: it's speaking human languages, albeit very slowly. Are there alien-equivalent eavesdroppers like themselves beyond their galactic neighborhood, which has just gotten much, much smaller?

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Limbo Search is a difficult book to start. Almost the first 20% of the book is crammed with acronyms, pilot-related vernacular and heavy detail related to the environment in which the crew are situated. It's not fun, it's not easy, and it certainly isn't friendly top the reader. BUT, this can be forgiven as the frisson of emotion works its way through the technical cracks of the plot to slowly effervesce; as this unfolds, the emotional content of the plot clouts the technical detail until it too is pure and difficult to grasp. As every dawn has a dusk, so too does the plot lapse back into a technical fixation but ends with a whip snap of emotion.

Because of initial loss in the techno-blabber, I may have lost the subtle characterization Godwin had been trying to establish and its repercussions. While the steady transition from technical to emotional was masterful, it was difficult to understand as a story-telling vehicle from a single read. In retrospect, I see the stress-laden crew in their heavily technical environment fighting with their basic humanity: freedom from restraint. The professional strain combined with the nanny state of their work environment compels them to accept superficial relationships which become the only drama in their rather placid lives.

Even the aliens are a—I can't really say “clever” because it's too obvious, but—good vehicle to shatter the technological pride of the humans and belittle their emotional understanding of humanity. I feel compelled to say that the aliens are “stereotypical aliens” but that’s almost an oxymoron, yet it will suffice for now. Aboard the Limbo Search, stereotypes are also abound: the Vietnamese man who still drinks rice whiskey, the German man who interjects his speech with Germanisms, and the addicted smoker who squirrels away cigarettes and willingly incurs the fines resulting from his habit.

While each personality may be nebulous as the corporations which exploit the cosmos, the surface-level emotional investment between characters creates a unique tension between them—a token pairing for the same of drama. This, too, imparts tension with the reader, who observes (in third-person omniscient) the unnecessary pairing-off and the resulting battle of soullessly authenticating the relationship. As mentioned before, even the conclusion offers whiplash of emotion; this whiplash isn’t directed at the reader to evoke a response, rather a coming-to-terms for the character in situ.

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Beneath the overarching technological/emotional plot, there lingers a tang of absurdity which the reviewer can’t pin down. The sixth-sense of absurdity is bolstered by one of Parke Godwin’s other series: Snake Oil (Waiting for the Galactic Bus [1988] and The Snake Oil Wars [1989]). It seems he had had a pleasure for writing criticisms of modern life and history. I’m not sure if there is anything else in his bibliography which beckons my readership, but one may still catch my eye.

1999: The Naked God (Hamilton, Peter F.)

Stodgy progress toward a quick, flawed conclusion (3/5)

How do you face 1,332 pages?

How do you confront 469,000 words?

My solution: Dedicate as many waking moments of my day for 16 consecutive days. I could have read four or five normal-sized novels in the same time, but I chose to finish Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy.

I may have glutted on the first two books, requiring two months of recovery before attempting to finish the trilogy; in foresight and hindsight, this was a wise choice. My grasp of the numerous plots didn’t slacken and, after all that time away, I had developed a thirst for immersing myself into a thick novel. The only other to-be-read novel in my collection which comes close to rival this length is Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666.

Hamilton’s The Naked God is a rite of initiation (after this, all books are short), a rite of passage (I would have eventually read this), and rite of finality (the trilogy’s capstone). It might be a superlative novel in some regards, but the grammatical superlative “greatest novel” I cannot bequeath; rather, the base form adjective “satisfactory” must be used without any use of emphatics.

Rear cover synopsis:

“The Confederation is starting to collapse politically and economically, allowing the ‘possessed’ to infiltrate more worlds.

Quinn Dexter is loose on Earth, destroying the giant arcologies one at a time. As Louise Kavanagh tries to track him down, she manages to acquire some strange and powerful allies whose goal doesn’t quite match her own. The campaign to liberate Mortonridge from the possessed deteriorates into a horrendous land battle, the kind that hasn’t been seen by humankind for six hundred years; then some of the protagonists escape in a very unexpected way. Joshua Calvert and Syrinx fly their starships on a mission to find the Sleeping God—which an alien race believes holds the key to overthrowing the possessed.”

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Quinn Dexter has made it to the surface of Earth using his dark powers to conceal himself and infiltrate key arcologies. Though his desire to see Banneth dead in Calgary, New York is on his immediate list to seed with the possessed, who will in turn seed other cities across Earth. Little does he know that Earth has been watching out for him, trying to understand hi s motives and figuring out how to destroy him before he destroys the planet. The secretive and powerful B7 group flexes its might to cordon off entire arcologies, quarantine cities and shut down transportation; the danger is unparalleled, so their efforts reflect this.

The B7 group also has a avuncular eye out for Louise Kavanagh and her sister Genevieve. The upper-class sisters from the devastated planet Norfolk utilize their father’s wealth in London while staying at the Ritz, splurging on outfits and even implanting a neural net (against the taboos of her home world). B7 understands the importance of her connection to Dexter; they strategize ways to allow Louise free reign of transport and indulgences. Her naivety is valued by B7.

Louise’s beau, Joshua, has been selected to head a mission to find out what and where the Sleeping God is. The Kiint are interested in the Sleeping God, too. With Syrinx, their first destination is a anti-matter production station which Capone is using to fuel his war against the Confederation. This visit kills two birds with one stone: (1) Joshua gets loaded up with essential anti-matter fuel for the 1,000+ light-year journey and (2) they can destroy Capone’s only source for anti-matter. However, when Capone’s fleet comes to refuel, they see the Confederation ships, which results in a standoff. One ship hangs back observing their next jump, a jump which is aimed either at empty space, meant to deter following, or toward one of the Tyrathca colony home worlds.

Since the habitat Valisk had been transported through the ether to a senseless, dark universe, the ex-possessed suffer with cancerous growths and ghosts haunt the surface, one of which is Dariat, who is still in tune with the mind of the habitat. The wisps of darker mist outside the habitat don’t interact with its mass, but probing beyond the mist proves fruitless. Unexpectedly, something from the void visits them, smashing through the windowed hull and attaching itself to a source of energy. Soon, these nebulous aliens gather more and more in order to seep away the life force of the habitat, but not without a fight by tooth, nail, and, most importantly, with flame.

Having lost his secret anti-matter station, Al Capone must find other ways to antagonize his enemy: the powerful yet abstract Confederation. He decides to rain terror onto local worlds by seeding them with possessed, too. Each planet’s orbital defense network destroys most of the shot attempts, but only one survivor is enough to turn a planet from non-possessed to full-blown possessed. One of his most devastating missions—sending a human bomb to Traflagar—comes to fruition and really, really pisses off the Confederation. Capone may not have realized the repercussions of the attack until it’s too late.

The Kingdom of Kulu has decided to post a massive front against the possessed on the planey of Ombey. Effectively sealed off, the attack begins with the orbital defense platforms firing lasers down upon the red cloud hanging over the province. The band of orbiting lasers pour dispersed energy into the cloud, into the possessed generating it, and into every single possessed person in the Confederation. When the cloud dissolves, the moisture that was pent up is released in an epic rainfall which erodes the land, turning everything into mud. The ground forces, mechanic bodies of transferred personalities, must trudge through the mud and capture and evict the possessed from every single little town of the province… except the patch of land where resistance quickly becomes escape when the entire landmass under their feet disappears. Now in a soupy dark void, tens of thousands of soldiers are displaced and thousand of the possessed must face death by suffocation as the air is slowly used up.

Meanwhile, Ione and her habitat Tranquility had faded an attack by Capone but, rather than sit and die, Tranquility instantly materializes in Jupiter orbit, shocking everyone and giving the Confederation a damn near heart attack. The Kiint were less sure of the tactic and displaced themselves through space to their home world, a distant location where a necklace of planets circle a sun unknown to humans… well, most humans that is. The Kiint’s secret ability to transport themselves is also shared with a number of human “observers” who had witnessed the last two thousand years of human history and now are trying to intervene; should the Kiint assist the humans in ridding themselves of the possessed or is their non-intervention policy an ethical choice?

They live in interesting times.

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Though I finished the novel in sixteen days, the book felt sluggish. With 300 pages left, I couldn’t see how all the plot lines could wrap up in time… then with 200 pages left, I again couldn’t see how everything could be resolved… with 100 pages left, I suspected everything would be revolved thanks to some deux ex machina; and certainly, my suspicions proved correct. With over 3,400 pages dedicated to the trilogy, how could everything boil down to a one-all solution (the end to The Reality Dysfunction offered a hint). The plot thread which leads to the novel’s conclusion is tenuous; the impetus is weak, the follow-through is linear and the finale is too grandiose.  While the vehicle for the deux ex machine isn’t exactly “out of the blue”, the reality and function is what tips the ridiculousness scale.

A novel could be written about the deux ex machine in this trilogy, or perhaps a trilogy itself.

As mentioned above, the numerous plot thread felt hasty; they trudge along at a snail’s pace without developing very much meanwhile feeling like the reader was simply being set up for something (that something is the deux ex machine). Reading the third book in the trilogy felt stodgy, a very inorganic process following the preceding two books… in other words, it felt forced (much like the conclusion).

Then there are holes in the trilogy:

                1. Why did Laton, way way back in Book 1, sacrifice himself and offer a message reassuring people that there is a way past the beyond: not everyone is doomed to be a wandering soul (with very little satisfaction, there is an answer to this and it affects the course of mankind’s future history). The importance of his role in the first third of the book could be the stuff of a prequel, but words of assurance don’t return until the conclusion is drawing out.

                2. As Joshua is gallivanting about the galaxy in his anti-matter powered spaceship, his crew come across evidence of the Kiint following the exact same line of inquiry; they’re methods of electronic restoration is identifiable, their concern about the Sleeping God known. Yet, in the three giant leaps it takes to get to the conclusion, the Kiint are only implicated in the first step. If they are so powerful and all-knowing, why could they not take that one step further, like the measly humans did?

                3. Quinn’s dark powers peak near the conclusion when he tries to summon the fallen angels of his God’s Brother. The result of his invocation startles him and startles the reader. There’s a crossover of plots regarding Quinn and the invocation brings the two separate plot threads together in a wholly unexpected and, to the reviewer, inexplicable way. Considering Quinn’s prowess with connecting with the dark side or whatever, he ought to be capable of tapping more greatly into the same realm… but what he invokes is way out of right-field.

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I guess pleasure can be found in the Night’s Dawn trilogy, not from the thoughtful prose or engrossing storyline, but from the challenge. The challenge in reading the trilogy is to keep all the storylines in your mind without having to refer to the character list or flipping back to the preceding chapters. For me, it’s a bit too much (1) military action, (2) galactic gallivanting, (3) whimsical fornication, (4) fantasy of the soul, and (5) downplay on importance of alien intelligence.

Regardless, I always look forward to Hamilton's projects.

2009: The Apex Book of World SF (Tidhar, Lavie)

Good collection which overuses the word “whilst” (4/5)

I was born, raised and educated in America but I’ve lived more than a third of my life in Thailand, almost my entire adult life actually; it has become my home—the place, people and customs I’m most familiar with. America is a foreign country. When I visit, the weather is unpredictable, the food is terrible and the shows people watch on TV are shameful, indulgent.  Anyway, the general atmosphere is oppressive.

Being (what I hope doesn’t sound hokey) a global citizen, many of my friends and students come from different backgrounds: Turkey, France, Lao, China, Brazil, Russia, Myanmar, Singapore, Korea, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Portugal… just to name a few off the top of my head. Each time, I’m exposed to a different narrative, a fresh perspective on life. Verbalizing the difference between each cultural narrative is impossible, but a warm quality of humanity is pervasive; stereotypes dissolve: not all Koreans are technologically savvy, not all Chinese are ugly tourists, not all Singaporeans are submissive law abiders, not all Irish are… well, actually, they are—that one’s true.

In essence, this mingling of cultures, this sometimes demonized “globalization”, has stirred the soup of our shared narratives. Many people are now raised in bilingual, bicultural families. This leads us to the question: What is World SF? Is it a story which typifies a people or a merely exotic surname? Is it a story exhibiting tactic cultural norms or merely engrossed in myth? In the end, the stories in this collection don’t have that exotic spark of foreign culture but they DO all have some wonderfully exotic names. If the reader is looking for foreignness within speculative fiction, these are not the stories you are looking for; but if the reader is interested in narratives which are difficult to access, this just may be it.

As mentioned in the paragraph above, this is a collection of “World SF” where “SF” does not stand for “science fiction”, as it commonly does, rather for “speculative fiction”: fantasy, horror, sci-fi, alternative history, etc. if you come looking for science fiction, these are not the stories you are looking for.

------Complaint Section, skip if desired------

One gripe: Being a global citizen and also being an English teacher, I understand that some countries prefer to use “while” and others prefer “whilst”; however, the use of each is not exclusive. Americans only use “while” but the British, for example, juggle the two. Take these great British novels for example:

• Virgina Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: while (32 times), whilst (0 times)
• E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View: while (54 times), whilst (1 time)
• Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None: while (10 times), whilst (1 time)

The stories in this collection very, very oddly only use “while” once (page 148); every other story exclusively uses “whilst”—sixty-six times to be exact, two of which aren’t even real words:

• Meanwhilst (?): pages 26, 45, 67, 289
• After a whilst: pages 44, 47, 105, 111, 144, 146, 219, 258, 323
• For a whilst: pages 110, 142, 154, 160, 210, 222, 237, 238, 248, 257, 259, 265, 277, 282
• Worth your whilst: page 119
• Worthwhilst (?): page 305
• All the whilst: page 319

“Meanwhile” has 57,900,000 Google hits; “meanwhilst” only has 62,600 results.

“Worthwhile” has 15,500,000 Google hits; “worthwhilst” only has 9,650 results.

Editor’s fault? Publisher’s fault?

This collection (Apex, an American publisher) has a version of Aliette de Bodard’s “The Lost Xuyan Bride” that contains “whilst” 10 times. Anyone can access Aliette de Bodard’s website and read another version of “The Lost Xuyan Bride” (first printed in the British magazine Interzone, 2007) that contains “while” 10 times.

Mutually exclusive?

------End of Rant------

Thailand, S.P. Somtow

“The Bird Catcher” (2001, novelette) – 4/5

Thailand’s own boogieman isn’t a strand of fiction—he actually existed and is actually preserved in a forensic museum just west of Bangkok. Nicolas has a story: He found his way to Siam as a stowaway from China where he was in a concentration camp. He arrived on the same boat as Si Ui, the man who caught and ate live birds. When they meet again, bird livers aren’t the only thing Si Ui has a hunger for.

Netherlands, Jetse de vries

“Transcendence Express” (2007, shortstory) – 4/5

In the Dutch lowlands, research into quantum computing hits stride when crossed with biology, resulting in a bioquantum computer (BIQCO). Liona, once a straight-laced follower of innovation, follows her boyfriend to Zambia where he is a volunteer. She, too, volunteers her knowledge to the community. The homemade BIQCOs slowly learn from the children and, in time, the children learn from them.

Israel, Guy Hasson

“The Levantine Experiments” (2009, shortstory) – 5/5

An 11-year-old girl, having been born, weaned and taught language under nearly absolute isolation until the age of five, is under constant observation as an experiment. Her home—a cell; her fixation—a crack in the wall; her limitations—endless. After two years of dreaming exclusively of the crack and its alienness of the light and dark voids beyond it, she is rescued into another prison.

China, Han Song

“The Wheel of Samsara” (2009, shortstory) – 3/5

From Mars, a girl with wonder in her eyes visits a Tibetan lamasery where 108 wheels spin in the wind—the Wheels of Samara. The 36th wheel, however, is discolored, counter-rotating and makes strange noises in the nightly wind. Back on Mars, she tells her learned father of the phenomenon. He eventually travels to Tibet to witness the relic and is confronted by a reality unknown to his precious science.

Australia/Fiji, Kaaron Warren

“Ghost Jail” (2008, shortstory) – 2/5

The slums called Cewa Flats are evacuated because of, what the Chief of Police says, the sacred ground under the site. Keith and Lisa, journalists from the newspaper, visit the Flats where the residents tell them of the contractible cancer of the breathe. Deciding on a closer look, Lisa discovers the Flats to be haunted and Rashmilla, a spirit contact, informs her that the gravestones render her escape impossible.

China, Yang Ping

“Wizard World” (2009, novelette) – 4/5

Lured into his own death by a character with the handle of Pig Tongue, Xingxing is miffed as to why he can’t access his account on the MUD game. Not having left his room for three years, he seeks help within the game under a new account; his Wizard friend Porket helps him discover the widespread hacking of the entire game program. Even in the year 2097, some vindication must be done in person.

Philippines, Dean Francis Alfar

“The Kite of Stars” (2003, shortstory) – 4/5

Only sixteen and love struck by the reckless jaunt of a young, influential astronomer who “only has eyes from the stars”, Marie becomes inspired to meet the young stargazer whatever it takes, or whenever. Her grand idea is to ascend in a kite for him to observe her, but the kite maker insists on the impossibility of its construction; regardless, she sets out for sixty years to retrieve the 1,000-part list.

Israel, Nir Yaniv

“Cinderers” (2004, shortstory) – 3/5

On a personal quest of wanton murder, Huey, Louie and Dweye kill various people by various methods, eventually racking up more than eighty deaths. The narrative trio attain singularity when the Demon, an outside force bent on curing the multiple personality war of his mental disease, kills the remaining personalities. However, the inner qualm of the murderer goes deeper than the split personalities.

Palestine, Jamil Nasir

“The Allah Stairs” (1990, shortstory) – 3/5

Laziz was the small, pale, awkward boy in primary school with the recurring bizarre story of sending his father up the Allah Stairs because of the abuse inflicted upon little Laziz. Years later and grown to adults, two ex-classmates revisit the apartment they and Laziz used to live in, where they see the Allah Stairs in Laziz’s room. They track the man down for an explanation and reassurance.

Malaysia, Tunku Halim

“Biggest Bassest Bomoh” (1997, shortstory) – 4/5

Idris Ishak is crazy about Zani Kasim, the new secretary who has become his object of worship. Her popularity among the staff and utter beauty doesn’t keep him from having a few tries at dates with her. Eventually his reality intruded on his fantasy and he resorted to contacting the witch doctor his friend recommended. His wish for iron-clad reciprocal love becomes true when she visits his home.

France, Aliette de Bodard

“The Lost Xuyan Bride” (2007, novelette) – 4/5

Jonathon Brooks is an American investigator with a curious history of having a deceased wife and fleeing the east state of America for the west state of Xuyan. The case of his missing daughter of a tech company founder sends Brooks on a path with the local ring of mafia, whom the young missing girl is betrothed with, and into the southern country of Mexica and their discriminatory isolation.

Philippines, Kristin Mandigma

“Except from a Letter by a Social-Realist Aswang” (2007, shortstory) – 5/5

In a meta-fictional twist on a Kafkaesque reality, an editor bitingly responds to a story submission by a fledging author who penned a novel about fighting monster cockroaches on an alien planet (a la Heinlein) while Earth itself is being protected by “alienated capitalist soldiers” (167-168). The Filipino editor questions the author’s socialistic allegiances and defends herself as a “baby eater”.

Croatia, Aleksandar Ziljak

“An Evening in the City Coffeehouse, with Lydia on My Mind” (1999, shortstory) – 4/5

Zargeb is full of beautiful women. This situation doesn’t impinge upon most minds but does drive one man into a voyeuristic indulgence. He secretly seeds houses with “flies” which record the subject’s most intimate encounters. He sells these thousands of terabytes of footage, but one gorgeous subject he want to keep for himself. The footage, however, shows her having some rather strange bed partners.

India, Anil Menon

“Into the Night” (2008, shortstory) – 3/5

Displaced from Mumbai to the Pacific island of Meridian, an 82-year-old Brahmin finds the transition difficult in part by his language preference for Tamil, his unfamiliarity with the science his daughter spouts off about, and the alienation from his culture. His emotionally disconnected daughter staunches his chance of integration and the memory of his wife fills him with discomfort in a technological world.

France, Melanie Fazi

“Elegy” (2007, shortstory) – 5/5

Deborah and Benjamin are the parents of twins, whom they adore even after their disappearance from their bedroom. Benjamin regresses to drunken stagnation and emotional detachment while Deborah pleads to a majestic tree on the hill which bores the generic likeness of Adam and Anne; she pleads with sacrificial words and the blood of her hands. Only a human sacrifice, she thinks, can appease it.

2013: The Eye with Which the Universe Beholds Itself (Sales, Ian)

Suspension of belief, bridge of anticipation (5/5)

The Apollo Quartet of Ian Sales began with remarkable qualities of detail orientation and desperation/isolation. That first story, a novella titled “Adrift on the Sea of Rains” (2012), oozed sincerity and dedication on the part of Sales. My expectations for the rest of the Quartet were set after reading “Adrift”; if Sales could infuse detail and humanity into each story without feeling repetitive, then he has a Midas touch. Taking “Adrift” in hand with “The Eye”, the Quartet looks to be impressive!

I procured “Adrift” on my own about two weeks ago, simply out of interest in the work of Ian Sales. I know him for his reviews and opinions on SF (e.g., twitter.com, iansales.com, sfmistressworks.wordpress.com) but I wanted to read his fiction. Happy with “Adrift”, I was even happier when I saw he had posted an invitation to receive the next two books in the Quartet. With that, Ian sent the EPUB files to me and, similar to Ian, I try to be an “irreverent blogger” and a “harsh but fair reviewer”. Regardless of having received the stories as a favor, I offer my honest opinion.

  

Similar to “Adrift”, there is an abundance of material aside from the story itself. The 60 pages of the EPUB file contain 43+3 pages of story and 14 pages of appendices which feature a list of abbreviations at the beginning of the story followed by a glossary, a bibliography, and a list of online resources at the end. The glossary is a mix of NASA historical fact mixed with speculation about an alternative reality of NASA’s space program (beyond Apollo 17).

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Bradley Elliott married his wife, Judy, with the intention of until death do them part. He had said to her that he would accept the Mars mission even if he were offered to be the first man to land there. Little did she realize that Bradley is married to his work, bound by duty and service to NASA and to humanity. For two years, he left behind his wife and the Earth for a mission to Mars, on which he became the first man—and only man—to set foot on the red planet. He felt her marital and physical distance divide him personally, but his one hope remained on returning to Earth to shower his wife in the love she deserved:

If only Judy could see him now, could feel the same anticipation, the same excitement, the same heightened awareness he now feels, could recognise that his moment defines him, that a palpable sense of purpose stretches from this moment, from his heart, both back and forth in time. She’d forgive him for accepting the mission, of course she’d forgive him. He’d told her was coming back. Again and again, he’d told her he was coming back. Not even one hundred and fifty million miles cold keep him from her. (17-18)

His mission on Mars’ soil lasted only ten days. Landing in the Cydonia region, as he looks out the lander’s window and treads on the rusty dust of Mars, his knows his initial mission itinerary is junked; now, he has a new mission focus: “The goddamn Face. And the Pyramid” (28). But with the single mind-blowing discovery he made, America immediately found its footing on an interstellar basis rather than the piddling intrasolar start-up in which they had found themselves.

That was 1979-1980. Man had landed on Mars, a great achievement for science and for Bradley, but the social backfire of the mission was NASA’s insistence on revealing nothing to the very people who paid for the mission: the American people. Bradley became despised, eyed for his vigilant secretiveness, but he also came home to his wife as a loving husband. Soon, he retires from NASA and returns to the Air Force.

From his discovery and the information gleaned from it in Area 51, the US President announces in 1988 that the US has already had an extrasolar base for the last four years. The USAF maintains an interstellar ship and has a debacle on their hands. Bradley receives a phone call: “How’d you like to back into space again?” (43-44). Thinking of Judy while on his interstellar flight, “[S]he’s probably already packed up and left. Perhaps he deserves it” (39-40).

It’s the year 2000 and Bradley is headed 88,120,000,000,000 miles to Gliese 876 d.

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Belief had to be suspended in “Adrift” for the Wunderwaffe and its trans-dimensional effect; the Nazi relic was a one-off wonder and produced an all too convenient scenario as a means of escape for the astronauts. “The Eye” is also a novella which begs for belief to be suspended, but for a more progressive and fantastic result, on three accounts: (1) technology existed in 1979 to send a man (literally, one man) to the surface of Mars; (2) Cydonia was the chosen as the first landing site because of the “convincing” Face on Mars; and (3) snapshots of the Mars artifact were detailed enough. If you can ignore these peculiarities and focus on what was accomplished and where Bradley is going, then you should find yourself being struck by the wonderment of Ian Sales’ What if… scenario.

Most people would be torn, thrown into turmoil, when confronting a major bipolar decision: stay with wife or go to Mars (OK, that’s an easy one, but don’t tell my wife). Bradley’s decision to go to Mars is tinged with the “Men are from Mars” theme—he simply wants to leave his Venusian (?) wife and return home to Mars. While “until death do us part” may spur Bradley to return to his wife, the decision to man missions for NASA is an overarching responsibility which trumps all other commitments—even marriage. It may be a tad monomaniacal, but Bradley certainly has his qualms with the responsibility he is willing to shoulder.

He is, after all, the most suitable man for the job 1.5 light years away, for one reason at least.

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“The Eye” shares similar themes as “Adrift”: a foundation of hard details supporting a speculative wonder clouded by an atmosphere of isolation (nearly verbatim from the “Adrift” review). This novella swaddles the trio; the result: a frission of disbelief and heightened expectation. Fingers crossed the last two books follow in suit. The remaining stories in the Quartet are:

·         Book 1, novella: “Adrift on the Sea of Rains” (2012)

·         Book 3, novella: “Then Will the Great Ocean Wash Deep Above” (2013)

·         Book 4, “All That Outer Space Allows” (yet-to-be published)