Phoenix (1990)

From nobody else than his own goddess Verra does Vlad gets his next contract. But even the gods can err, and the consequences of this assassination may not only destabilize the whole Dragaeran empire, but even end his own marriage. And if that wouldn’t be enough he has angered a high-ranking Jhereg whose enmity may prove to be very deadly.

While a complete book upon itself, saying that it’s completely self-contained wouldn’t be right. The storyline about the revolution movement that started in Teckla has been picked up again and comes to a head. Also the story threads of how Vlad can work further as an assassin when he has become sour on the job, and whether he and Cawti can fix the cracks in their relationship, are followed upon.

If you liked Teckla, you’ll very much like the plot in Phoenix, if you didn’t care for the whole revolution angle there neither will this book do much for you, at least when the bigger plot is concerned. How Brust solved (ha) Vlads personal problems feels very true, at times you wonder whether you read a fantasy novel or some mainstream novel about people fucking up their personal lives. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, I liked it.

Teckla (1987)

Vlad’s wife Cawti is involved in something that could easily be called a combined Easterner/Teckla revolutionary cell. The problem is that the would-be revolutionaries come into conflict with a local Jhereg boss, and this in turn is a danger for Vlad’s wife, which is the reason why he becomes involved.

This is a bit of a departure from the first four books in the series, this time there’s no complicated conspiracy or a lighthearted adventure like in the earlier books (at least as far as they were really lighthearted). The one thing that stands out is that this book really adresses the fact that Vlad is an assassin, that he kills people for a living, but thankfully Brust doesn’t try to write a redemption arc for Vald.

There are also other things going on, the relationship between Vlad and Cawti shows some deep cracks, and while they don’t break up completely with each other, neither does it really look fine at the end of the book. Then there’s the revolutionary, free-the-Teckla, down-with-the-empire angle, with is interesting, since you don’t expect to see that in most fantasy books, but it was something I liked seeing, so no complaint from me there.

I liked the book like all the others in the series, but I could understand if others would have a different opinion, since it is at least in parts a departure from how Brust handled the other books.

Jhereg (1983)

A high-ranking Jhereg boss has left with most of the Jhereg funds, and Vlad Taltos has to kill him and bring the money back. The problem is, it turns out that there’s more to it than just a Jhereg boss on the run, and bringing him down might be very difficult for Vlad.

There’s not really much to say, it’s an excellent book like the others in the series, it has a plot with some nice twists and turns, the whole cast of Vlad and his friends turn up, and making it that at least Morrolan couldn’t help Vlad to solve this problem was a neat thing to do. Like all the other books in the series it’s very tightly written, a fast and enjoyable read. Like always it’s fascinating to see how neatly all the book work together, considering the fact they are written out of order.

Dragon (1998)

While his friend Morrolan goes to war with another Dragon, Vlad Taltos enlists in his army to fight as a foot soldier because he’s been angered by Morrolan’s enemy.

At first I thought this book had to be the second, not the third chronologically, since most events take place between book one and two, but alas most Vlad Taltos books are chronologically fuzzy anyway. Reason is, there’s a second storyline that takes place after Yendi, that requires knowledge of the events in Yendi.

More than even in his other books Brust jumps around between different events in time, how Vlad got angered by Morrolan’s enemy, his army experiences, then a piece near the end of the war and then the events after Yendi. It would be hard to make that into a movie, too damn confusing, but as a novel it works beautiful.

It’s interesting to see how smooth the books in this series work together, despite that there are years between they have been written, I haven’t found any glaring continuity errors or sudden character changes, all seems naturally evolved.

Yendi (1984)

A turf war between Vlad Taltos and one of his neighboring mobsters turns out to be much more than just a turf war, and concerns his dragaeran friends and the empire itself.

I really didn’t expected the story to take so many twists, but they made actually sense (even if I thought the connection to some bigger conspiracy had to be extremely contrived the first time Vlad said there might be more to the turf war, thankfully it wasn’t), and it was just fun to see the plot growing from a small turf war into a centuries spanning intrigue.

Vlad already acted much more coolly around his dragaeran friends than he did in the first novel, which comes partly from some of the events between the first and the second book that are in the third book Dragon (which covers events after Yendi and before, like the battle at Baritt’s tomb). There were also some nice moments of character development, like when Vlad told another human among Dragaerans how he remains sane while his dragaeran friends plans the conquest of his whole race. All in all an excellent read.

Taltos (1988)

Vlad Taltos meets Sethra Lavode and Morrolan for the first time in his life and goes to the Paths of the Dead to recover a lost Dragaeran. Intertwined with this storyline is an account of his past from early childhood and his first years as a criminal and later as an assassin.

One shouldn’t have so much fun reading about the life of an assassin, but that’s exactly what this book is, a fun romp with an excellent plot and great characters. Often when two storylines are intertwined like in this case, one is interesting and the other only there to bloat the book. Thankfully both storylines are interesting to follow, be it how Vlad became the person he is at the begin of the book, or his adventure in the Paths of the Dead. The writing is compelling and very readable, full of wit and dry humor. While not the first published Vlad Taltos book, it’s the first chronologically and a good starting point for this series.

Monstrous Regiment (2003)

The country of Borogravia has a problem, the things their god Nuggan bans become more and more strange, like the color blue, chocolate, babies and sneezing, which makes living under Nuggans decrees more difficult with each day. To its neighboring countries Borogravia is only known as the country that fights with everyone, and when the Ankh-Morporkian clacks are destroyed, an alliance of Anhk-Morpork and Borogravia’s neighbors tries to end this annoyance once and for all.

I expected this to be some kind of anti-war novel beacause of some reviews I read, but it turned out to be more a novel about the emancipation of female soldiers in a backwater country. Toward the end it became a bit silly with all whom turned out to be women in disguise, but I still liked it very much. And it’s always nice to see Pratchett creating a new set of characters in his world.

Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (2001)

It’s not often that I read a collection where nearly every story hits home big time. The only ones that come to my mind are those two by Greg Egan, a writer who couldn’t be more different from Watts. Watts POV of human nature is that we can’t escape our own biology, that all the little and big lies we tell about ourselves are nothing more than a thin layer covering our true nature, and hiding from this is not a beneficent or even a smart move.

Which easily could have let these stories fall prey to a sort of nihilism where only biological imperatives count, but that is thankfully not the case. Few hard SF writers infuse their writing with such raw emotion and humaneness, you can feel anger burning beneath these words, real humans trying to deal with all the shortcomings of our very nature. These stories don’t paint a nice picture of us, but neither do they wallow in despair. Watts’s writing is excellent, completely absorbing, and if that wouldn’t be enough, nearly every story has a brilliant SFnal idea at its core, fractal behavior, thinking clouds, the benefits of murderous aliens and more. In conclusion, this is one of the very best SF collection I ever had the pleasure to read.

A Niche

If your main character is a damaged individual because of her past experience of abuse, the first option to solve her inner conflict is to try and heal her mind. Or you can use her special mindset and put her in a situation where she is exceptionally adapt at thriving, while ‘normal’ humans aren’t. Deep down in the blackness at the bottom of the ocean, where pressure mounts, both physical and psychical. Very atmospheric, and while you read the story you feel like you’re with the characters deep down in the ocean, Watts has a style that sucks you into his stories and doesn’t let go.

Fractals

This is more a slice of life piece combined with a fascinating idea, mostly because there’s no real feeling of an end or closure. But the journey of the main character who discovers that a certain human behavior may have a fractal nature is mind-blowing, sadly, since this is a Peter Watts story, the human behavior we’re talking about isn’t something as nice as altruism.

The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald

A small notice says this was published before the Matrix came out, which is understandable because of the thematic similarity. Only that here the concept behind it is much bigger. I just mention Frank Tipler. There was one plot device which was needed for the story to work, but didn’t made sense if you thought it over: why didn’t the people know where they were. Still an excellent story.

Bulk Food (with Laurie Channer)

I think only Peter Watts (and here with assistance of Laurie Channer) can write a story where humans finally learn to speak to whales, only to discover that whale society is not much better than our own. The story nicely messes with certain types of humans, like radical vegetarians, but while some of the cheap shots make for some good fun, the story ultimately suffers from them because it made it less serious and more silly, like the predictable horror ending. Good, but could have been better, especially because the idea is excellent.

Nimbus

What if clouds are vast computational devices who harbor some sort of awareness but very slow thinking speed. When mankind becomes too much of a threat to the environment, storms and thunder begin to wipe them from the face of the earth. And even when mankind tries to make up, clouds process and compute oh so slowly, and it might be too late for the clouds to register our changed behavior. Mostly this is a clever idea combined with a human interest story about a man who lost his wife and has to take care of his daughter amidst a slow-going but unstoppable apocalypse.

Flesh Made Word

Our typical Watts story with a damaged (personalitywise) main character who has, to cope with the loss of a loved one, become obsessive about recording the last moment of dying people, but who also has shut out or cut away most of his own emotions, which makes his present girlfriend slightly uncomfortable. There are also some clever bits about emulations of humans minds and some other stuff, but mostly it’s about a dysfunctional relationship and how we are our own worst enemy. Don’t expect a happy ending.

Ambassador

A first contact story that shows that not only can alien civilizations that reach the spacefaring age of their respective culture not be peaceful, they have to be malevolent to have made it there and if they don’t find other threatening über-aliens who want to wipe them out, their civilizations are bound to go the way of the Dodo. To say this story is grim is a big understatement, and yet in some perverse way the argument of the story makes a certain kind of sense. Probably the one story I liked most because of how Watts reused classical themes and turned the world upside down with them.

Bethlethem

Entropy may cause social breakdown, or at least this is what one of the characters tells herself and her friend to cope with her recent rape. While the human interest part was very well done, somehow the story didn’t worked for me. If I had to pin it down, it was that the breakdown of society in the background felt unreal, unrealistic, which seemed disjointed from the human interest story.

Home

This takes place in the same setting as the first story ‘A Niche’, and plays with similar themes, only that it’s shorter. Since the human protagonist is most of the time in a kind of non-thinking vegetable state, it’s hard to develop much of an empathy for her and connect to the story as a whole. It’s interesting, but not as good as the other stories.

American Meat (2005)

Sanctioned Op (a kind of bounty hunter in the Dark Future setting) Batton MacKay has to find three intelligence augmented animals, a cat, a dog and a rat. Hunted during his search by a vegetarian biker gang named the Mad Cows, he penetrates deeper and deeper into a conspiracy that has demons, other talking anthromorphic animals that his current employer has designed in the past and the source of the meat that is sold everywhere in this future America.

The bad first. Everything seems a bit shallow, the atmosphere, the characters, who while likable, have a tendency to act more like caricatures than real humans, as if Moore tried to write standard cyberpunk characters, succeeded and then failed to add more depth to them. There are moments when you see him trying to make them deeper, but somehow he can’t pull it off. The plot begins strong, but soon meanders from one event to the next without giving the reader the feeling of some strong narrative developing.

The ending is a bit anti-climatic and weaker than the begin of the book promised, and the whole plotline about Professor Wan could have been given a better resolution than the book offered. Still, all these things said, it’s an easy and fun read that is entertaining most of the time despite its shortcomings.

Science Fiction – The Best of the Year (2006)

6 stories from 15 were good to great, 6 were average and 3 below average. A slightly weaker Year’s Best anthology than those by Hartwell and Gardner, but the comparison with the later might be unfair, Gardner has just so much space that there’s always enough good stuff. Horton’s anthology had many well written stories, but while the writing was good, the content/plot was only average. On the other hand it had 4 excellent stories who weren’t in one of the other two Year’s Bests I read, so at least for me it was worth it. Interestingly, the two shortest selections were also two of the worst stories, while a similar move in Hartwell’s case proved to be very positive for his Best Of.

Michael Swanwick – Triceratops Summer

It feels as if this is a lightweight, short variant of the final point of his novel “Bones of the Earth”. Since I was annoyed at his conclusion then, my reaction to this story is the same, a story that is made pointless by its own plot device.

Tom Purdom – Bank Run

A competent adventure story who failed to capture my interest. His observation that even with universal fabricators raw matter and energy were still drives of economies was spot-on, but his conclusion about software and entertainment driven by the same old economies seems wrongheaded. You’ll get a Bitchun society ala Doctorow where reputation for things done is what counts, not old-style money.

Douglas Lain – A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story

A seriously weird story were nothing seems to happen, but written so enthrallingly that you won’t hardly notice the thin plot. There’s no real resolution that explains anything, but still the story is kinda interesting. I liked it, YMMV.

James Patrick Kelly – The Edge of Nowhere

A very well written post-singularity story that remains a bit too vague on the nature of the cognisphere (a knowledge base of everything human) to argue its point about human creativity convincingly.

Joe Haldeman – Heartwired

More of a sketch than a story about a couple who try to regain romantic infatuation for each other for some days via help of a potion. Very weak effort IMHO.

Susan Palwick – The Fate of Mice

Excellent story that references its main influence (Flowers for Algernon) directly in the story. A mouse gets uplifted and has to come to grip with its own mortality. Despite the heavier undercurrents of the story, its written in something approaching a light tone, which makes the story fun to read too.

Howard Waldrop – The King of Where-I-Go

Like some stories in Horton’s anthology this is very well written, but the plot or content itself is not very memorable. It has some strange time travel who doesn’t really feel like real time travel. It’s nice, but that’s it.

Wil McCarthy – The Policeman’s Daughter

Excellent story that takes place in McCarthy’s Queendom of Sol future where matter fax machines can duplicate and transport humans across the whole Sol system, and where even old backups of your self can be reactivated. Here a conflict between younger and older selves takes place, and shows that sometimes you can be your own, worst enemy.

Leah Bobet – Bliss

Another well written story about a future drug that failed to impress me. The SFnal idea is minimal and the story could have easily been a mainstream story about drug abuse. Nice, but nothing more.

Robert Reed – Finished

When you speculate about future technologies, then the limits you impose upon them to create potential for plot conflict hinge upon the clever chosing of these limits. Either it makes your story look foresighted or ridiculous. In this well written story sadly the second is the case.

James Van Pelt – The Inn at Mount Either

My first thought upon reading this story was: “Who in his right mind would build something this dangerous, this is only calling for trouble.” Apart from that, when you know what the shiftzones are for, you know how the story is going to end. The story has some nice imagery and is well written, but I still felt it was only okay.

Mary Rosenblum – Search Engine

Assuming that the erosion of privacy is a bad thing is IMHO the easy assumption, without giving much thought to how realistic this really is. A society where everyone can track everything about everyone is a society where it will be much harder than even today for politicians to plot an event such as is at the core of this story. A transparent society may indeed be the end of real privacy, but Rosenblum’s story never ask why this is a bad thing, it just assumes it is and uses a cheap scare tactic to convince the reader to think likewise.

Stephen Leigh – “You” by Anonymous

A little bit of experimental writing that thinks it’s more clever than it really is. Furthermore, the connection to being science fiction is really thin. That is a one-gag story that even when it works for someone will only work once, after that there’s really no reason to go back to it. Sadly it didn’t worked even once for me, only annoyed me.

Daniel Kaysen – The Jenna Set

One of these story that with only a bit of speculation about current technology stretched a little bit further brings you into SF territory (automated human telephone avatars). It shares two aspects with Susan Palwick’s story in this anthology, the first already mentioned, there’s only one slight area of speculation about technology, all the rest is the present we know. The second is that it too is written in a light tone that makes it fun to read, despite that the themes are no less deeper than in stories who feel heavier because they have no humor in it. I like this combination of heavy themes and light style, but it might not be for everyone.

Alastair Reynolds – Understanding Space and Time

A description of this story might make you wonder if just one story can fuse all the elements therein into a cohesive and successful narrative: a virus wipes out the human race, one sole survivor is slowly going mad when he’s killed in an accident and is later revived by aliens. Then he goes on a quest to understand space and time and everything. This doesn’t seem to make much sense, but you’ll have to read this story, it does not only make sense, but it’s a beautiful story that is about all the things that appeal to me in science fiction, the need to understand, but all this combined with a human at the center of the story, someone you can relate to. An excellent story for closing this anthology.