Interzone #244 Jan - Feb 2013 (21 page)

The whole panoply of human experience and endeavour is here: high adventure, the exotic, royalty, love, disappointment, sadness, elation, medical marvels, deep friendships, overcoming the odds, global collapses. Lands the length and breadth of Empire and beyond, peopled with revolutionary agitators, villains, princesses in disguise, assassins, inventors, aviatrixes, circuses, surgeons, and captains of the air. Beneath all the wonder is something else, however: a harsh reality and unpalatable truths.

This collection is not afraid to push through the nominal boundaries and venture into a kind of no-man’s-land where the connection to the genre is tenuous. It starts off with the very epitome of steampunk, Carrie Vaughan’s ‘Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil’, and then veers off into uncharted areas such as Jeff VanderMeer’s ‘Fixing Hanover’, or Ben Peek’s ‘Possession’, where the steampunk itself provides only the most distant of backdrops.

‘A Handful of Rice’ by Vandana Singh could be said to go even further – it eschews the familiar setting of Victorian England and transplants it to the Indian Subcontinent. The central pivot of the story is the friction between the old and the new, between pranic energy and steam-power, yet the latter is only incidental to the story itself but nevertheless essential to the telling. Bruce Sterling contributes ‘White Fungus’, set in 2040s Europe amidst a global collapse. Its crumbling cyberpunk aesthetic (which is, if you think about it, the logical conclusion of steampunk) signals a harsh critique of systems reliant on technology, whether those systems are home computers or large political bodies. It seems to be saying
“
what about people?” Curiously, the story inverts the focus of hope, from shiny technology to post-steampunk human invention and resourcefulness.

It is impossible to encapsulate the full spectrum of instantiations of the genre as contained in this anthology. It is by turns astonishing and audacious, emphasising just how wide the spectrum of steampunk can be. Absolutely essential reading for students of the genre

* *

Benedict Jacka

Orbit pb, 319pp, £7.99

Juliet E. McKenna

Having enjoyed Jacka’s first two books, I opened
Taken
with mingled anticipation and apprehension. Book three is often when prior knowledge of character and scenario becomes essential. That, or painstaking recapping sees the opening flow like cold treacle. Encouragingly, neither applies.

Alex Verus, low-level divination mage, sits in a Starbucks waiting to meet an unknown but very powerful mage woman. As Crystal offers him a job, and he turns it down, Jacka swiftly and deftly portrays the essentials of Alex’s character and grounds his story in contemporary London while simultaneously revealing the perilous parallel world of rival mages of Light and Dark. A new reader should have no problem picking up the series here while fans of
Fated
and
Cursed
learn new facets of Alex’s life. So far, so good.

Alex turns down Crystal’s offer because he has other responsibilities, notably training his apprentice Luna. Their relationship is now firmly master and pupil and it’s good to see Jacka avoiding the urban-fantasy-soap-opera pitfall. Luna’s currently taking classes in magical duelling. So far, so Harry Potter? Third books often see a new writer’s imagination running out of steam and resorting to imitation. Not so here. Jacka draws on broader traditions of magicians’ apprentices to expand his magical world. That said, I don’t think Potteresque echoes are accidental, but an indication that readers and characters alike shouldn’t leap to assumptions as this story unfolds.

Next, Talisid wants Alex’s help and turning down a request from a high level Council member isn’t easy. Not that Alex wants to. Apprentices are disappearing. If Dark mages are recruiting by abduction, this is serious. Even more so if some Light mage is letting information slip as to where vulnerable apprentices might be found, by accident or design. As in the earlier books, ‘Light’ and ‘Good’ are by no means synonymous. Light prejudice against magical creatures, the less magically powerful and particularly the non-magical world becomes apparent and ultimately significant. Meantime, Dark mages mercilessly pursue ambitions and grudges alike.

Events take a deadly turn as Alex follows a promising lead into an unexpected hail of gunfire. Getting out of that isn’t easy, even if Alex can read the future. Jacka’s continued inventiveness with spellcraft is a continuing strength of these books. Magic’s full potential relies on its intelligent use as well as an understanding of its limits. Though that’s just the beginning of Alex’s challenges. Some mages would prefer to do away with all such limitations. A low-level diviner and a few apprentices can’t battle them.

This finely crafted story is a solidly satisfying read.
Taken
sees Jacka established as a writer with a distinctive voice within the best traditions of contemporary urban fantasy.

* *

J.T. Brannan

Headline pb, 400pp, £7.99

Ian Hunter

For the world’s self-proclaimed most reluctant reader,
Origin
appears on the surface to be the perfect book. Split into five parts and seventy-two chapters, this has all the hallmarks of a short chapter page-turner. But is it? Well, we are in Dan Brown-ish territory, I suppose, and before the supermarket shelves became dominated by paperbacks with black or grey covers and a photograph of maybe a mask or a glove or a chain, then
Origin
would have been right up there on the shelves beside books with three words in the title, with one of them being Nosferatu, or Lucifer, or Doomsday, or Templar. You get the picture.

First-time author (and former army officer) Brennan knows how to spin a yarn at breakneck speed, and the military antics have more than a ring of authenticity to them. The action opens down in the Antarctic on Pine Island Glacier, where a member of an expedition lets his curiosity get the better of him and falls to what might be his death. His team follows to the rescue and find what he has just discovered, which is a mummified body with “anomalous artefacts” as they say in the trade. Something that couldn’t possibly be, but is, and no sooner does the expedition reveal that they have discovered something “anomalous” than shadowy powers, listening in via satellite, quickly join up the dots and wipe out our band of intrepid explorers. Apart from team leader Lynn Edwards who has nowhere to turn except into the waiting arms of ex-husband Matt Adams who, handily, was once a member of a crack government unit. Their relationship brings to mind Andy McDermott’s series of books featuring Nina Child and Eddie Chase.

What follows is the mother of all conspiracy theories as well as some minor ones, such as the mysterious, possibly all-powerful Bilderberg Group; theories about the missing link between man and ape; the remote Area 51 in the Nevada desert; the Nazca Lines in Peru; and a certain Hadron Collider in Geneva. To be sure,
Origin
isn’t subtle; there is a tad too much conspiracy theory dumping, a kitchen sink approach to piling this “otherness” into the mix, and some fast switching between multiple viewpoints of different characters, regardless of their importance to the plot.

My advice? Don’t look down, keep your eyes straight ahead, and your knuckles white by holding tightly to the covers of the book until the end.
Origin
isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. There is maybe too much going on and the reader’s incredulity will be stretched with regard to the characterisation, some of the action, and parts of the plot, but it does what it says on the tin by providing a few hours of over-the-top entertainment perfect for the beach, the pool, or before the lights go out, and it ends in a cliffhanger that just cries out for a sequel.

* *

Eric Brown

Solaris pb, 383pp, £7.99

Lawrence Osborn

Helix Wars
is the sequel to the 2007 novel
Helix
, which described the arrival of humans on the Helix, a vast artificial environment created by a race of benevolent aliens known as the Builders as a refuge for intelligent races that have been threatened by extinction on their home worlds. The new story is set some 200 years later. Humans are now well-established on the Helix and have been appointed by the Builders to the largely diplomatic role of peacekeeping.

The central character, Jeff Ellis, is a shuttle pilot who regularly transports peacekeepers to other worlds of the Helix. However, on this occasion, his shuttle crashes on Phandra (a world occupied by tiny empathetic humanoids), killing his passengers and leaving Jeff himself seriously injured.

He is rescued by some Phandrans and restored to health by Calla, a Phandran healer. It transpires that he was shot down by the Sporelli, an aggressive authoritarian race who have invaded Phandra in order to gain access to the natural resources on another world further along the Helix. As soon as he is well enough, Jeff sets out with Calla to get news of this invasion back to the peacekeepers on New Earth. However, the Sporelli pursue and capture them.

Fortunately for Jeff his crash has come to the attention of Kranda, a member of the warlike Mahkani (the Helix’s engineers), whose life he once saved. Because of their code of honour, she is now bound to rescue him and duly does so with the aid of some highly advanced Builder technology. Jeff then insists on rescuing Calla and in the process they save the Helix from an alien invasion.

Interwoven into this is a secondary story about Jeff’s marital difficulties. Since the death of their son he and his wife Maria have grown apart, and Jeff, based on advice from Calla, clumsily seeks reconciliation. After some spectacular twists the two storylines merge, Jeff is made an offer he can’t refuse by the Builders, and they all live happily ever after.

The novel is driven by the well-paced action of the main storyline, while the secondary storyline adds depth to Jeff. However, most of the minor characters, particularly the aliens, are little more than two-dimensional stereotypes.

By contrast, Brown’s description of alien technologies is very imaginative. The wind-powered mass transport system on Phandra is refreshingly novel, while the technology underlying the Helix itself is mind-blowing. Unfortunately he allows the technology to become a
deus ex machina
by providing Jeff and Kranda with nearly invulnerable Builder-designed exo-skeletons that all too easily enable them to overcome the challenges that face them.

In spite of my reservations, I enjoyed
Helix Wars
. It may not be Eric Brown at his best, but it is still imaginative, well-paced and easy to read

* *

Margaret Atwood

Virago pb, 272pp, £9.99

Barbara Melville

Margaret Atwood messes with me. Sometimes, as with
The Handmaid’s Tale
,
Oryx and Crake
and
The Year of the Flood,
this is a positive experience, taking me on unexpected journeys, and making me think in different ways. For me, this knack of uprooting people’s thinking is pivotal to good science fiction. But despite penning these tales, all frequently considered science fiction, Atwood insists she’s been miscategorised. Over the years, she’s been challenged and even chastised for saying so. This collection offers a riposte of sorts, whilst exploring and celebrating her personal relationship with the fantastic.

In the book’s earlier essays, Atwood charts two histories: her own, from childhood to adulthood, and that of science fiction. The book’s later essays explore and review specific other worlds, including H. Rider Haggard’s
She
, Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World
, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s
Never Let Me Go
. While each essay is taut and engaging, the book’s overall structure is difficult. The opening essays are the most powerful, rich in strong ideas and skilfully bonded through memoir. The later essays are just as riveting but not as personal, making them harder to get into.

Despite the clunking mechanics of this setup, these essays share a common thread: the concept of other worlds. Such worlds, Atwood tells us, may be physical, conceptual or temporal: alternate realities, other planets or unwritten futures, to name a few. They may be utopias, dystopias, or both – what she terms “ustopias”. What these worlds have in common is their mapping of unknowns.