Mini-Review: The Red by Linda Nagata

The Red by Linda Nagata is a fun, action-packed take on near-future military science fiction. And it’s best that you go into it with as little advance knowledge as possible (as I did). So, while this isn’t going to be a long review by any means, if that’s the approach that you would want to take, know that it’s a book that I very much enjoyed and enthusiastically recommend that you read, but you shouldn’t read what I have to say below.

Still with me?

OK, what I really like about The Red is that it ambushes the unsuspecting reader. The book starts out as a fairly typical, near-future military science fiction book. It has a bit of mechanized armor, some cool cyber-integration, and it has a lot of fair bit of deeper messaging about the dangers of a military-industrial complex where the private billionaires have taken all decision making related to war from the people, important discussion on the toll all this takes on soldiers with some drug addiction thrown in, and some interesting ideas about criminal-justice, consequences and such. There’s also a nice bit of romance where an old love comes in conflict with all the complications of life and military. Plus it throws in a good bit of terrifying Texas independence crap (note, I was born and raised in Texas, but managed to escape nearly 20 years ago).

All of that makes for a great, fun book that has just enough message to make it extra interesting.

But The Red throws in a big twist. The protagonist apparently has some really accurate instincts that protect him and the soldiers around him. So much that there are ‘jokes’ about it being messages from God. We eventually learn that this instinct is a message from the outside, but it appears to be coming from some form of AI that lives in the internet and can access the soldier through his integrated skullcap, and the top minds in the military have no idea how this is happening. Now an AI itself isn’t such a different thing in military science fiction, even when combined with all the cool stuff above. But what I really enjoy about this particular AI is that it appears to be a marketing program that has ‘evolved’ and that the goal seems to be about improving things and people’s lives. Because, after all, happy, successful people spend more money. This makes for a really cool contrast to cynicism of everything else going on in the book and makes a great read into a truly memorable book.

The Red is the first book in a trilogy, so things don’t move all that far, and I fully expect that there are more twists to come in the future books and resolutions are not exactly what one would expect – that’s called good writing, and after reading The Red, it’s what I would expect to continue in to the other books of the trilogy.

Anyway, to bring this around full circle, The Red is a great book, the rest of the trilogy is out there and it’s criminal that I haven’t read them yet. So, both of us need to get reading.

The Red Trilogy

The Red: Amazon

The Trials: Amazon

Going Dark: Amazon

Review: Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell

As a geologist, as a concerned citizen, as a parent of 2 young children, I’m horrified by the (lack of) actions of my country regarding global warming. It’s happening, it’s real – it’s a problem that society needs to deal with. And as much of an issue as it is, it’s surprising how little it’s been explored in fiction, particularly near-future science fiction. Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell (BookDepository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) does just this in an intelligent, fun and action-packed fashion. It is near-future science fiction, it is a techno-thriller where the world has warmed, the seas have risen, the Northwest Passage is ice-free, and money and power are not far behind.

The thawing of the arctic seas has opened the lands and waters to economic exploitation. Lands once buried in ice are rich in minerals. The seas have some of the last remaining oil and gas in a world past peak oil. The rising power and influence of the ‘Arctic Tiger’ nations has a global shift in power in an increasing unstable world and new a melting pot of opportunity. And a ‘green corporation’ has risen as the most powerful corporation on earth with a goal of reversing the climate trend, a goal at odds with economic boom of polar waters.

Anika is a young UN pilot patrolling the polar waters. She and her partner find a positive reading for radiation on a passing ship. Their airship is shot down with a surface-to-air missile. Anika survives only to find herself at the center of a conspiracy quickly spiraling out of control.

Thrillers are generally good, fun reading, but not necessarily a place to expect the best writing. The writing is usually adequate, but it’s the story and the action that dominate. In Arctic Rising the story is action-packed with compelling characters and it’s got quality writing. This is a smart thriller – Buckell has done his research. And for a book that set in a time reacting to the consequences of global warming, it’s not the didactic global warming research you may think of. The United States military has done lots of contingency planning based on what could happen in the future due to global warming – Buckell takes these studies and uses them to create a convincing story through the eyes of middling UN pilot of a new socio-economic order of nations and corporations battling it out in the arctic. There are spies, there are mercenary soldiers, there is a criminal underworld. There’s torture, redemption, hopelessness, nano-technologic wonders and an errant nuclear bomb.

All of this is told from the viewpoint of Anika, an unlikely character to be at the heart of a thriller. Buckell could have stuck to the tried and true protagonist – a white American guy from the coast, or even a nice white American girl from the Midwest. Instead, Buckell looks to his own mixed routes as an immigrant from the Caribbean and chooses a female protragonist who is from Nigeria. The perspective of Anika as someone from the developing world and her interactions with an independent spy, Roo, from the Caribbean are a fascinating touch. The lingering effects of colonialism are present, the distrust of the big developed nations and their corporations is palatable and the repeated jabs to the presentation of international espionage from James Bond are hilariously sharp.

Equally refreshing is the inevitable love story subplot. As the story progresses, Anika develops a potential relationship with an underworld boss. Only as cliché as this could be, Buckell throws expectations a curve ball with Anika being a lesbian. The story could have easily been told with a traditional man-woman love story, but instead it’s a same-sex romance. And the best part – it’s just there. This isn’t some big statement and it doesn’t control some critical part of the thriller plot. The romance just happens to be same-sex, and it’s presented as being as normal as apple pie. I look forward to the day that such a romance is normal enough to not merit mention in a review like this.

And Anika is wonderfully strong protagonist. She’s tough and vulnerable. She’s conflicted about her feelings for Vy and what she owes a criminal boss who has seemingly selflessly helped her so much. She has an interesting past as a pilot and was even something of a child soldier. She’s a victim and a survivor. But she doesn’t lay down and take it, and she doesn’t rely on a rescuer – to the best of her ability she stands up to take as much control of the situation as possible.

OK, this is my soapbox paragraph, so if you’re not interested in how I see this sort of novel as important to getting the message out to the public about the reality of global warming, just move along to the next paragraph and be thankful that even though Buckell writes about a world changed due to global warming, he never actually gets on a soapbox (though plenty of interesting statements populate the novel). Arctic Rising is just the sort of fun, intelligent fiction that needs to permeate through pop culture to help educate society on the reality and potential of global warming. When people see enough of it, they will slowly come to accept it’s real and something needs to be done. We see the shift in climate, we see the last refuge of the polar bear and we hear the regret of the loss of a hometown to rising seas. And I love that ‘the other side’ that Buckell presents is the very real truth that there will be at least some economic opportunity that results from global warming (access to new minerals and other natural resources). That and the big bad environmental corporation and its vision of saving the world. This is the sort of alternative view that should be shown, rather than climate denialsts, which to me is like giving equal time to those that believe the earth is flat.

Tobias Buckell has written an intelligent, fun and even poignant thriller in Arctic Rising. It’s set around a likely future that should warn us of the consequences of global warming, yet most of its focus is on the new opportunities that arise and the Bond-like escapades of Anika as she tries to figure out who shot her out of the sky and why. This is what a thriller can be and I highly recommend it.

Review: Son of Heaven (Chung Kuo 01) by David Wingrove

In 1989 David Wingrove published the first volume of the eight-book Chung Kuo series. Due to pressures from the publisher, the final volume of that series was unsatisfying to both Wingrove and fans of the series. Fast forward to the present and Chung Kuo is getting a complete revision from Wingrove and Corvus Books. Two prequels will be added to the series, the final book will receive a near-complete re-write and be divided into two books and the original eight will be heavily revised and further divided into smaller books, bringing the re-booted series to a total of 20 books. Son of Heaven (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) is the first volume of the new (and improved?) series, a prequel to the original series.

I never read and books from the original series, though I’ve been curious about them as I continually see them on shelves at used bookstores. I imagine that the people and events of Son of Heaven will have greater meaning to those that have read the books previously, but for me it was a blank slate – in a lot of ways, a wonderfully blank slate.

In the year 2043 the world is in a dark place – the US and China are engaged in a cold war and Western societies have reached a point where they wall off the privileged and leave the rest to fend for themselves. Jake is a hotshot trader, possibly the best in the UK, and living a large life. Jake is one of the first to notice something is wrong in the virtual marketplace that runs the economy – the prelude to the strike that destroys the world’s economy. Timed with strategic assassinations, the destruction of the world economy literally ends civilization.

Twenty years later Jake is a father making his way in an isolated village in the west of England. Crops are grown, goods traded at the market, disease can no longer be treated, and the land is plagued by armed bandits – though it’s an improvement over the chaos immediately after the fall. It’s an existence – one that Jake and the others living in their small, isolated corner of the world know can’t last. Then the Chinese come.

Son of Heaven is told through a limited number of viewpoints bouncing from 2065 to the year of the fall in 2043. Since the narrative begins in 2065, we know what will happen at the end of the 2043 story arc, just not the details. It’s the brilliant storytelling of Wingrove that makes it work. Wingrove instantly sucks you into his horrific post-apocalyptic future through his characters – principally, Jake. The simple act of walking through a field to get to the village becomes an adventure with the reader hanging on every word. This is greatest strength of Son of Heaven – the consummate storytelling of Wingrove.

The world of science fiction is rife with versions of Western society’s apocalypse. Son of Heaven does as admirable job of providing the goods on the fall of civilization, though it doesn’t stand out of the field. The near-future evolution of the internet, virtual reality and the integration of economics are presented nicely, if not entirely original. While it’s all believable while you’re reading, it does seem a bit implausible that the entire society could be taken out so quickly by a hugely complex plan devised by a single individual that executes perfectly. However, that’s not so much of an issue with strength of Wingrove’s storytelling.

As with all near-future apocalyptic stories, Wingrove’s version of the fall certainly has what would be considered a political/ideological flavor to it. While the economics of capitalism aren’t shown overly favorable, neither are they demonized – the demonization seems reserved for the political right. Wingrove’s future isn’t pretty and it’s a future shaped by the right. But again, while present, it doesn’t play much a role in the novel beyond the vehicle for the collapse – which brings us to the Chinese.

Wingrove has clearly done a lot of research into the history of China, its people and its interactions with the West. However, the portrayal of the Chinese is rather stereotypical and unfriendly – after all, they are the big bad villain in the story. Reading such a portrayal is very unsettling at times, but that seems to be the point. The presence of a very likable Chinese general who rises above the stereotypes only serves to reinforce them. The Chinese are equally stereotypical about the British. I get the feeling that Wingrove will spend a lot time in future volumes playing with the notion of stereotypes of peoples and cultures – or perhaps the Chinese are just painfully stereotyped.

One aspect of Son of Heaven that I find fascinating is the interplay of the past and future with a castle overlooking the small village Jake has settled in. It’s a beautifully presented thematic arc – modern society crumbles, in a way sending people back in time to a village overlooked by the ruins of an ancient castle. Both Jake and the Chinese general at times express a love and respect for this ancient past. However, the stalwart castle is eventually destroyed in the onslaught of the new Chinese Empire as they forge ahead with their vision of the future and effectively end Western civilization. I find this so powerful because I’m a child of the American west (or close enough), a place without the deep roots of Europe or China that can be so integrated into the modern existence that they get overlooked.

Son of Heaven kicks off the re-booted Chung Kuo series with a bang. It’s addicting stuff – addicting enough that I don’t have heartburn about embarking on a 20-book series (at least the page counts look to average less than 400). 8/10

Review: The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

In recent years Ian McDonald has explored near-future science fiction through the people of emerging economies such as India with River of Gods (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) and Brazil with Brasyl (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound, my review), both of which received huge critical acclaim and multiple nominations and wins for some of the biggest-name genre awards. In his latest novel, McDonald takes on Turkey with The Dervish House (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound).

Because I haven’t found a way to say it better, from the description on the back:

The Dervish House is seven days, six characters, three interconnected story strands, one central common core – the eponymous dervish house, a character in itself…

In the year 2027, another anonymous suicide bomber on a tram in the middle of an early heat wave sets the stage for The Dervish House. The backdrop is a Turkey that is new to the European Union in a world heating up with climate change where Turkey has emerged as a key broker of energy (gas). This is the clash of Europe and Asia, Religiosity and Secularism, history and future, the haves and have-nots.

I’ll not go as far as to call the dervish house a character in itself, for if it is, it’s an incomplete character. But in The Dervish House, aspects of the geography, socioeconomic, religious and political groups do come alive – perhaps not as full characters, but as not-quite separate personalities within Istanbul – a city suffering and celebrating its multiple personalities.

The Dervish House is at its best when telling the simple stories of its people. Whether it is an old Greek economist, brilliant, yet fallen, who dwells on the past and dabbles in the present, a beautiful gallery owner caught up in the search for a legendary mellified man, an ambitious trader orchestrating an ambitious and illegal get-rich scheme, an isolated disabled boy seeking adventure, a visionary young Islamist, or a country girl struggling to succeed, these are the stories that work – at least when the rest of book isn’t getting in the way.

The plot structure is both a great wonder and terrible weakness for The Dervish House. The reader is fully immersed into the world of the characters – their small, insular worlds. By following the stories of six characters the reader sees more, but not the complete picture – in short, you don’t know what the book is about. At halfway through the book, you still don’t know what it’s about. Sure, you have enough to suspect what it may be about, but you don’t have that single, unifying plot to grasp on to. That lack of a central force holding the book together puts distance between the reader and the story. Yes, some of the individual characters are quite fascinating, but with the time spent divided by six, not enough devotion is built up. The book becomes easy to set aside, hard to describe, and at times, a bit boring and uninteresting.

Unlike with Brasyl, when the plot does reveal itself and the threads converge, it’s an altogether satisfying unification. The end makes sense, it feels good, and presents a very optimistic melding of the conflicts tearing at Turkey from within.

The science fiction focus of The Dervish House is nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has permeated society, though the full implication of it has not. Its uses are seemingly endless and people are just beginning to grasp what this means as they begin to catch up to these possibilities. The singularity hasn’t happened, and isn’t immediately eminent; however the foundations for it are being laid.

I suppose it’s debatable if McDonald is using emerging nations as a way to explore near-future science fiction or if he’s using near-future science fiction to explore emerging nations. I also suppose it doesn’t matter since both are achieved; however, it is clear that these are books aimed at a Western audience as they showcase the people of countries who are likely to play a very big role in the future of the world – a much bigger role than the people of the USA in particular are willing to admit. It’s an exotic and fun way to experience near-future science fiction – I can’t comment on how close McDonald comes to getting it right, though it feels as if he gets at the least rather close.

McDonald’s tried and true strategy of exploring the people of emerging economies in combination with the implications of technology on society in a near-future setting succeeds once again. While I found The Dervish House to be a bit uneven at times, an unevenness that once again holds back what could be a truly great novel, I still expect to see it on the short list for multiple awards. It’s at times powerful, informative, and fun and another example of science fiction alive in our world. 7.5/10

Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

If you haven’t heard it yet, be prepared – The Passage by Justin Cronin (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) is poised to become the next big thing in books. It all began with a bidding war, eventually won by Random House, and a nearly $4 million advance for a trilogy, followed quickly by a nearly $2 million movie deal. With such big dollars already invested, of course the marketing push is going to be equally impressive – to begin, something like 10,000 ARCs of one form or another were distributed. The Passage will be covered in the New York Times and every other major paper press still operating in books, it will be celebrity __’s pick of the year, book club, etc, and Cronin will make the talk show rounds. When you walk into an independent bookstore, the well-read, literary bookseller will tell you that you must read this book. The Passage will re-start the tired old debates about literary writers jumping into genre and not acknowledging it and I’m sure it’ll be at the center of discussions of genre books and awards at some point down the line. This is that book that all your friends who don’t read SFF will be reading and talking about.

But for the moment let’s forget about all of that. After all, this is a decidedly genre blog and the readers around here are fans of SFF. So, what is The Passage to us? Well, first off, it’s a damn good book. It takes the loveable, dark brooding and sexy vampires that pop culture has given us and morphs them into near-immortal, militarized weapons emerging from the labs of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). The Passage is Apocalyptic fiction giving time to events leading up to the apocalypse and even more exploring what the world is like 100 years later, a world barely alive and still battling for survival against the Virals. Overlooking all of the expected comparisons of ‘The Stand meets The Road’, The Passage takes ownership its adopted genre and deserves to be discussed in its own right – however unique it is or isn’t. The Passage really is one of those special books.

The Passage is told in two very separate parts. In the beginning we learn of a girl named Amy and how she finds herself an orphan with no last name. Then we learn about researchers with relatively crazy theories on the how a virus may have influenced the evolution of humanity and a failed expedition into the Amazon. Next we see how Amy ends up at a secret research facility for the USAMRIID and other unnamed agencies, along the way getting a feel for the world and what is about to happen. The army is looking for super-weapons created from a virus that can wipe out terrorist threats and just maybe a by-product will be the means to live forever. Of course things go horribly wrong and the twelve subjects escape, beginning the apocalypse. Amy is something else – a survivor of the virus, potentially immortal, at least very long-lived, but a child – a child with an adoptive father on the run.

The second section is told with a very different style and tone, beginning with survivors at a fortified enclave about 100 years in the future. We see how they live and die in a harsh world under the constant threat of Virals when everything changes on the day Amy arrives at their gates. A journey ensues – a journey to save the world.

Apocalyptic fiction delves into our fears of the direction the world has taken, and The Passage is no different. The near-future envisioned just prior to the apocalypse is the pessimistic extension of our own. The specter of global warming is making itself known. The United States’ struggles in the Middle East have grown into war with Iran. India and Pakistan have used their nuclear weapons. Terrorists strike the US heartland with regularity, driving it towards something close to a police state. Then the government does something really stupid and ends the world.

In the beginning, Cronin shows of his literary roots, telling the story in heart-wrenching chunks sure to bring tears to the eyes of those so inclined. Some of this section is very hard to read – both as a father and as a human concerned for the direction of our world. Cronin builds both sections of the book in the very literary tradition of dealing with themes of human relationships. The father-daughter relationship is perhaps the most prevalent, but a good bit of time is spent exploring those of father-son, husband-wife, lovers and adoptive families/communities.

Cronin succeeds not only by spinning a vampire apocalypse into a compelling story that needs to be read, but by creating characters that truly live. In the space of only a few lines he shows fully rendered characters. These characters as often unlikeable as they are likeable, but the reader quickly develops a bond with the core group of characters – a bond that carries through the hurts and joys.

The Passage weighs in at a hefty 766 pages in hardback, and this is perhaps its greatest weakness. Some scenes may not be all that necessary, but in the least, a few don’t feel as polished as they should be – The Haven comes to mind as one, though details would be a bit too spoilerish to share. The geologist in me was a bit bothered by the presentation of some of the towns in the future – some fates seem unlikely and make me wonder if Cronin has ever visited these dots on the map. Also a few of the character revelations near the end of the novel – particularly with Alicia – felt rushed or not quite right. The result is a bit uneven, but not so much that it impacts the overall quality of the book.

As mentioned above, The Passage is the first book of a planned trilogy, with the next installment expected in 2011. As such, it doesn’t stand on its own – The Passage is a story-arc with closure, though not real resolution. More is certainly to come – more that the reader is probably going to really want to read. And the last lines are a pretty juicy cliffhanger – not mind-blowing and not enough to generate out-right anger, but just right enough to dwell on.

So, the buzz surrounding The Passage is already huge and I see it only growing. It’s a genre book from a literary writer with potential appeal to a much wider audience than either alone. For us genre readers, a vampire apocalypse novel may not seem like it should be the next great book, but as always, it’s all about the execution – and Cronin executes The Passage with near-perfection. This book earns the buzz, this book should be read and discussed widely, this book is both literary and genre, this is a book I highly recommend. 8.5-9/10

Review: Sleepless by Charlie Huston

Right from the very beginning I knew that Sleepless (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound) was going to be something different – potentially something of excellence and almost certainly depressing as hell. Equally clear right from the start was skill that Charlie Huston was wielding with his writing – it’s far superior to other books of his that I’ve read (admitted I’ve only read a couple of the Joe Pitt casebooks). The potential was enormous – potentially something that would break all genre barriers and wind up on Oprah’s list (like The Road a few years ago). And ultimately Sleepless delivers – perhaps not to the same level as The Road (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound), but something special nonetheless.

Sleepless can be described as apocalyptic science fiction, a detective story, a thriller, noir, cyberpunk, near-future sci-fi, or even horror. While all are true to one degree or another, Sleepless is a crime story at its heart – this is simply the story of a dedicated cop working undercover to unearth conspiratorial crime. But let’s not forget that it’s equally apocalyptic – not post-apocalypse, or pre-apocalypse, events in Sleepless occur while civilization is unraveling.

Think about the economic crisis as we’ve known it over the past couple of years – now add to it a plague that is 100% lethal, that infects 10% of the population and is spreading. This plague knows no bounds or economic class – it is everywhere and it is incurable. Once infected a person looses their ability to sleep – they have waking dreams, hallucinations, and are unknowably tired, but they will never sleep again. And they will be sleepless and fully conscious until their inevitable death comes. And they will wreak havoc. The only potential relief comes in the form of Dreamer, a drug that will allow them sleep and if they choose, a peaceful death while sleeping. Dreamer is the drug they need and there isn’t nearly enough.

Park is a unique man who believes in absolute black and white. He truly believes in justice and injustice and absolutely believes that everything will right itself and the world will turn out right. In Park’s world there is no other possible outcome, the world must be right for his wife and infant child. Even if his wife is Sleepless and maybe the infant too. Huston paints Park’s point of view through short absolute bursts of words, approaching telegraphic prose that is perfect for a man of absolute black and white. Huston’s misguided Park denies reality by diving into his work – to infiltrate the Dreamer black-market and find out who’s behind it all. In Park’s mind this will literally save the world.

Balancing Park and his point of view is a more fluid voice, more nuanced, yet in its own way, equally absolute. Jasper is a killer. A man with the experience of a relatively long life, Jasper has embraced the apocalypse as the ideal environment for someone like him to flourish. Through these contrasting voices an interesting truth emerged as I read – the point of view of the killer was much more comforting and less infuriating that the point of view of the hero. And that’s horribly appropriate when the world is ending.

Huston creates an absolutely terrifying world – terrifying because it’s so close to our own. It shows the illusion of civilization that we all live behind for what it is. It shows just what human nature can (and does) do. These are the truths that become evident right from the start and my most optimistic reaction was ‘this can’t end well’.

Oh the end – I wish I could talk about it in detail without spoiling. It is either absolutely brilliant or stunningly wrong. Or perhaps both. I’ve thought on it for days and still haven’t decided, but I think I’ve come to accept that it fits the world that Huston has built. As I said above, ‘this can’t end well’ – the question is just how bad will it be – will any hope be left. Or does everyone die.

So Sleepless is an apocalyptic crime story plus many other pieces that all add up to literary fiction. Yes, this is a book that is both genre and literary (in spite of having a plot). It is very much a discussion on the human condition – it’s just that most of the human conditions viewed are what so many of us would choose to deny exist. This is both a book that I can’t recommend highly enough and a book that I don’t think I ever want to read again. It is excellence, it is depressing as hell, and thankfully, it’s not entirely without hope. 9/10

Related Posts: Interview with Charlie Huston