Fools Errant (1994)

I can understand why some reviewers compared Matthew Hughes first Archonate novel to Pratchett in his early Discworld novels, despite the completely different setting. It’s a sly and witty travelogue that sports a fool as the main character (though not a foolish one) who, instead of seeing the wonders around him, looks at the world as something that is out to get or least annoy him. Unlike Rincewind, though, Matthew’s Filidor is allowed to grow over the course of his journey and earned the respect of his uncle (who forced him onto this journey in the first place) and also some new-found insights about himself.

It’s never easy to write a story entirely from the viewpoint of a character who is utterly ignorant and self-centered and who still remains interesting to the reader, but Hughes humor offsets this in spades and Filidor at least shows some glimmer of intelligence early on. Also, along the way he reads a book full of morality tales that have conflicting, confusing or just nonsensical lessons, which makes for quite an enjoyable diversion.

MM9 (2007)

There’s nothing wrong with a gimmick as the starting point for a story, but when the actual execution of the story never amounts to more than the gimmick, something obviously went wrong. Point in case MM9, which posits that all the Japanese monster movies are actual representations of a former reality that got fictionalized once the last trace of those monsters had been extinguished from Earth.

Sure, the underlying reality shifting theory is completely bonkers, but when has that ever stopped a good story. But MM9 (the eponymous ranking for the heaviest class of monsters that can attack) has cardboard characters, paper-thin and mostly boring action plots and most of the time just feels like a ridiculous Kaiju fan-fiction that has grandiose ideas, but whose ambition is never matched by the skill of the author.

Oddly enough, he also wrote one of my favorite books of the last years (The Stories of Ibis), which was also ambitious as hell, well written and had none of the weaknesses shown in MM9.

Darkwar trilogy (1985-1986)

When I started reading Darkwar I wasn’t expecting much. It’s an omnibus of three previously published books by Glen Cook in 1985 and 1986 (Doomstalker, Warlock, Ceremony) that don’t get mentioned very often even by the most ardent Cook fan and even then the reaction is mostly indifference. So color me surprised when it turned out to be one of the best things Cook has written, which considering the quality of his other books is no mean thing.

I can understand why the Darkwar trilogy never caught on big time: it starts out looking like fantasy, later turns into a more SFnal direction but never sheds its more fantastic elements completely (it does have spaceships driven by monstrous space ghosts). It goes from a tribe of nearly stone age dwellers through various tech zones up to advanced spacefarers. It’s a first contact story, told from the viewpoint of the aliens and the humans only turn up very late in the story. That alone could be enough. But I think the biggest roadblock is the main character.

She’s neither saint nor monster, but clearly exhausts her capacity to do both good and harm in equal measures. By the end of the trilogy she’s seen both as a savior as well as destroyer and most people are wary of invoking her, lest she does another round of creative destruction. In her wake her entire society has completely changed, the old order is destroyed (a elite space faring witch chapter), all her former friends are dead (and most of them turned into deadly enemies along the way) and new space faring technology not beholden to space ghosts becomes the norm.

Some of her actions may be hard to stomach, even if they kind of make sense from her perspective. She’s a decidedly uncomfortable character for those readers who like their characters to contain more good than anything else, as she rarely compromises and easily hands out death and destruction untempered by social conventions or diplomatic necessities. Her modus operandi is to cut the Gordian knot and damn the consequences.

Structure-wise the trilogy is fueled by an endless cavalcade of paradigm shifts, both on the personal level (she goes from stone age dweller to far future space pilot, with the reader tagging along and experiencing the same shifts) as well as in the wider sense of her entire society experiencing endless future shock in the form of various technological changes and the erosion of ages old cultural norms.

All this ruminating on the various elements of the trilogy leads me back to one question: Why isn’t this more known and appreciated? It’s ambitious as hell yet pulls it off with ease, manages to be a pretty original riff on typical SF themes, has a complex main character, pulls some pretty unexpected twists and never seems to take the easy route out. It’s highly readable and compulsively so without dumbing down either style or content.

The Fractal Prince (2012)

The Fractal Prince is the second book in the unnamed trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi that started with the Quantum Thief. And like many trilogies the real payoff is still delegated to the as yet unwritten third book. That said, the Fractal Prince is not only one of the strongest middle trilogy books I’ve read for some time (the weakest in many trilogies due to their often superfluous nature), it’s so far the best science fiction book from 2012 I’ve read.

Rajaniemi’s show don’t tell approach is still present, but unlike in the Quantum Thief we learn more about what is going on in his future, who most of the bigger players are and why some of them do what they do. The Sobonorst abhor death and want a controlled, digital universe that has next to no quantum mechanical elements and behaves classical even at the shortest imaginable lengths. Their big counterpart are the Zoku, who have no quarrel with death and integrated tech into their very being that needs quantum mechanics to function. Rajaniemi also plays with singularity concept, questioning whether the axiom that smart AIs can easily construct the next round of even smarter ones with next to no problems is true (though at least two intelligence spikes seem to have happened in the settings past, so it may hold true under certain constraints).

What else is there? The novel owes some of its structure to 1001 nights and even incorporates some thematic elements into the plot (jinns, ghouls, etc.). We learn more about the true nature of Jean le Flambeur, who is more than just an advanced post-human con-man. Not sure if I liked the revelation about the archetypes coming to live, but hey, given the level of technology its easily reconciled with the rest of the setting and doesn’t seem all that implausible.

But despite how enjoyable all the world-building and tech-speculation is, it isn’t what makes the Fractal Prince such a good read. It’s that Rajaniemi’s novel manages to be both highly ambitious in terms of scope and yet also manages to be highly accessible with likable and understandable characters. Unlike other writers who confuse ambition and scope with a cast going into the thousands, Rajaniemi build his tale around a few memorable characters who, despite their in most cases decidedly non-baseline nature, still remain relatable. That’s, considering the setting and everything that’s going on, pretty amazing.

I’m still wondering if he’s going to pull off a grand finale and I really hope it won’t just be a fight between the Sobornost and the Zoku, but something more extravagant and smarter.

Foundation and Empire (1952)

So, I finished the second of the classic Foundation novels and having recently read two other old-school science fiction novels (one by Sturgeon, one by van Vogt), it was really interesting to see how all of those three handled superhuman characters.

Vogt’s main characters often were mutants, persecuted, but due to their superior abilities as well as superior morals able to triumph. Asimov’s mutant is at the other end of the spectrum, someone who uses his powers only for his own gain and to the detriment of the human race. Sturgeon’s mutant (though more a gestalt creature made up of various mutants) is somewhere in the middle, neither a power fantasy nor a unstoppable dangerous threat.

Unlike the first Foundation novel (consisting of various short stories), there are only two bigger stories here. The first is about a conflict between the Foundation and a general from the ailing empire, that plays out as expected. A threat to the Foundation rises, the characters try various means to solve it and failing that, realize that historical momentum has solved the problem for them (pretty much how all of the stories in the first volume played out).

The second story is about the Mule, a mutant who has mental powers that make it easy for him to control other humans. And it’s here that Asimov deviates from the template of the other stories, since this crisis is something that wasn’t foreseen in the plan. The characters in all stories so far were more or less observers of history whose personal agency amounted to pretty much nothing. This time, it’s the decision of one human that stalls the crisis.

The Mule, after having taken over a big part of the former empire and even after destroying the Foundation, sets out to seek the Second Foundation, a fail-safe in cases something unforeseen happens (so admittedly, Seldon planned for the case that something happened he couldn’t foresee). The story ends with the conflict not resolved, but the Mule’s galaxy-wide conquest is temporarily stopped.

And like with the first novel, it was an okay read. Asimov’s foundation trilogy still ends up on various Best Of lists of science fiction, but unlike say Bester’s The Stars My Destination, I think it has lost a lot of what once made up its appeal. The setting seems quaint, the writing is plain, the characters are superfluous and sketchily drawn and the ideas about Psychohistory and what such a thing if real could really mean explored merely skin-deep. It’s an easy read, but it really feels dated and tired and there’s no big intellectual pay-off that makes it worth reading.

The only reason for actually reading it is for historical purposes. Because, you know it’s a famous science fiction novel and probably on any canonical list of classical science fiction. Beyond that, not much comes to mind.

Cold Days (2012)

After the apocalyptic but not very self-contained Changes and the sub-dued but largely self-contained (as far as these things go in such a long-running series) Ghost Story, Butcher manages to offer the best of both worlds with his newest entry in the Harry Dresden series. Cold Days has the scope of Changes and a few more novels crammed into one, but still manages to tell a self-contained story just like his earlier books did.

Now completely in the grasp of Mab, Harry can’t avoid being the Winter Knight anymore and his fear of becoming a monster becomes more real (pretty much a typical urban fantasy story arc, reminded me of Anita Blake killing more and more monsters without even getting bothered much anymore, before she series went in a different direction). And while his first task from Mab seems impossible (kill an immortal), soon even that pales when the real stakes at play get revealed.

I’m not really keen on authors of long-running series trying to tie all the various threats that appeared into one big enemy force, but it’s not something that comes out of left field for the series. The Black Council has been openly hinted at for some time, but Butcher fields even those guys as just part of the problem and not the source. The real enemy isn’t all that surprising, but Butcher offers some cool revelations that makes the “what is really going on” still pretty interesting.

Cold Days feels pretty much like Butcher’s best outing for some time, and despite a few missteps along the way (the whole scene with the Lady of Summer and the ways of the gays seems more like Butcher trying to defend himself while just digging a deeper hole, as well as much later digging out the old multitasking myth about woman to make a point that makes Butcher or his character look pretty stupid), it offers just the right mix of high tension action, snarky main character and cool plot twists that keep you reading until the last page.

Every book that leaves me wanting for more, just right now and not in a year when the next one is probably coming out, obviously did something very right.

Foundation (1951)

Foundation, the first part in the trilogy with the same name, which actually isn’t so much a trilogy as a three-part collection of chronologically ordered short stories about the fall of the first galactic empire and the following age of chaos and strife, is one of the famous classics of old-school science fiction. It has aged pretty well, though you can spot all the signs of its age. Space ships and most of the high tech of this future history is fueled by nuclear power. A space empire with a completely urbanized core world and logistics that seem downright insane.

The Foundation-trilogy is often critizised for being more about ideas than about characters, but as odd as it may seem, I found the characters more compelling than the ideas. Sure, they are sketchily drawn and seem all cut from the same cloth, but there is an ease with which you can get into story thanks to them. On the other hand, alone the idea that an empire or at least its basic structure is worth saving is something I find debatable, but it’s a point not even raised.

I don’t even mind the whole idea of psychohistory, which allowed Seldon to map a future history in detail. It’s just the same as using a glass ball in a fantasy story and it’s a what if for which I can suspend my disbelief. But the foundation of the story, at least to me, is the biggest problem. Space empires, space kings and dark ages are part of a set of old-school science fiction elements I can’t take seriously anymore. History isn’t a cycle that repeates old motifs add nauseaum.

That’s why I can enjoy the Foundation stories as action-adventures (although with the heroes mostly winning by default through historical momentum), but not as a serious discussion of the core concept. It’s so strongly tied to completely ridiculous ideas that taking them away breaks the story, but keeping them in there makes it implausible and the conclusion worthless as a serious subject.

More Than Human (1953)

Sturgeon’s More Than Human is typical for its time in that it bundles a couple of short stories (three in this case) together to reach the size of a novel. But apart from it being a fix-up, it’s pretty unusual in many ways, then and now. It’s not exactly an easy book, often frustrating in the opaque way it goes toward the meat of the story. Densely and skillfully written, deeply entrenched in the genre despite not actually looking like it for most of the time. Subtly ambitious it tells the story of a gestalt-being made up of various humans with superhuman mental abilities.

If you’ve never heard or read any Sturgeon, it would be easy to accuse him of not liking to write SF. But from all that I read about and from him, he was just ambitious, trying to advance his craft and his themes, not to exclude anyone but to go the extra mile. I’m not sure I can say I liked MTH, but it’s an impressive piece that hasn’t aged much and still leaves me with awe at its audacity and panache. It takes your usual outlandish science fiction idea, seriously considers its ramifications (both welcome and unwelcome ones) and manages to bring it down to a human level with believable characters.

And each of the three stories, after a long and arduous beginning that seems to go nowhere, ends in the perfect place and on the right high note. The first story reveals what is really going on, the second that even a gestalt-being made up of singular humans is bound by human psychology and the last one ruminates on the role of ethics and morals for such a uniquely singular being and that there’s more going on than initially expected.

Not easy, if you’re more prone to usual genre outings, but worth it.

The World of Null-A (1948)

I read The Weapon Shops of Isher years ago and remember liking it. Really liking it. I’d alway planned to read more of van Vogt’s oeuvre, but didn’t until recently. One of the other famous works by Vogt, beside the Isher cycle and Slan is his Null-A trilogy, probably his most famous. After finishing the first book in the trilogy, the World of Null-A, I tend to agree with Damon Knight’s famous assessment of Vogt entire work. Completely bollocks.

I have no idea whether my early memories of reading Isher were due to lacking required critical faculties or whether the Null-A trilogy really was Vogt slowly drifting away from the ability to write anything coherent. The World of Null-A doesn’t just read like Vogt had no idea, no, it reads like he changed his mind about where the entire plot was going from chapter to chapter. It also reads like it’s a work entirely influenced by a kooky philosophy, but with all the lectures about said philosophy cut out. Imagine reading an Ayn Rand novel with all the lectures taken out, it would be less dull but also more confusing.

I’m still not sure what Vogt found interesting about the Null-A philosophy or why it would inspire an entire culture, but it’s one of his pet peeves about the superhuman (mind) and how to overcome conventional thinking. It’s actually not a bad concept (okay, now I understand why he wanted to write about it) to have an entire culture of people who can see through simple mind tricks and can’t be swayed by the usual PR, but the whole Null-A thing remained so sketchily drawn and some of the plot developments where so absurd that it was hard to take seriously. And not in the way of “wow, what insane, but mindblowing stuff” but more in the “shit, what is he smoking, he can’t even write a coherent plot on a simple sentence level” sense.

Sure, there are interesting moments, ideas and plot developments that almost seem to make sense, but it’s always short of cumulating into something meaningful. Instead, it’s a book that seems to be plagued by a writer with short term memory loss and a character who can’t do anything apart from being superior, without actually being superior. Vogt’s book shows some imaginative and word-smith skill without any focus to make it come together. In the end it’s a collection of bizarre and strange moment strung to together without going anywhere, without really making much sense.

What a pity. I wished I could have been impressed, like my younger self was with the Isher books.

Genocidal Organ (2007)

I’ve put off writing about the Genocidal Organ for some time because I wasn’t exactly sure how to write about it. It’s conceptually quite clever, just as much has his later book Harmony, but even more gruesome and tiring in other ways. At the end of it I felt kind of numb to it while at the same time horrified that I wasn’t more horrified. I’m really not sure if it makes all that much sense, but I think it was a deliberate effect by Itoh.

The main character of the book is, depending on your viewpoint, just a soldier or an assassin and murderer who works for a special branch of the US military, tasked with taking down authority figures in foreign countries who play a big role in state- or rebel-sponsored atrocities against their own citizen. Unlike the present situation the US has a strict policy of not invading but taking out the heads and power players via assassination. The main character is also someone who is more or less completely detached from the carnage he inflicts.

Before Clavis Shepherd and his men go on a mission, they get prepared by a cocktail of drugs and mental configuration to make them shoot even kids into the face without facing any kind of turmoil. But to deal with what happened on their missions afterwards each of them has developed their own unique brand of mental tools to cope, to numb themselves to what they do. The same kind of detachment Clavis is going for it something Itoh manages to impress on the reader, to numb them, inure them for the big twist at the end of the novel.

Basically, the rate of foreign atrocities (civil wars, massacres of minorities, insurgencies and the likes) has gone up and no one in the US intelligence department is the wiser why or how to stop it. Midway into the book we learn the first big plot twist, the title of the novel itself, but not the reason why it happens at all. That comes at the end, something which I wasn’t expecting but which seemed so obvious in hindsight in all its cold and gruesome logic.

On one hand I think it shows that this book is less eloquent with its constant, sometimes even irritating info dumps by the main character, something Itoh did in Harmony in a much more subtle and integrated way. On the other hand I’m not sure it wasn’t done deliberately to exactly get the effect that the reader sees all these little factoids and entirely misses the big point until it’s too late and he realizes the horror he’s avoided from the first page. The atrocities all make sense, but Itoh prepares us one the way there so that we don’t run screaming away in the end and just feel numb.

It’s not a novel about which you can in any meaningful sense write you enjoyed it without sounding a bit mental too, but then I enjoyed the hell out of John Barnes Kaleidoscope Century which has an even more disturbing main character and character arc. But while not exactly a novel for the squeamish and while not exactly being escapist fun, Genocidal Organ is nonetheless a powerful and compelling read. Hell of a ride, so to speak.

Also, did I just read a deeply American novel that if I didn’t knew it was written by a Japanese I would have never guessed (I’m neither, so I might make a complete wrong judgment call here). This seems just like a more extreme variant of the stuff science fiction writers have done in the post-11th-september climate, but from an entirely American viewpoint.