“Dalek I Loved You“

by Nick Griffiths

Format: Paperback, 289 pages

Published by Orion Books, 2008.

Okay, a bit off the wall this one, not your usual helping of horror/fantasy although it does have (somewhat tenuous) links to SF. Dalek I Loved You tells the story of Nick Griffith’s life against a backdrop of Dr Who. From Nick’s earliest memories of Jon Pertwee , through Tom Baker until he begins to drift away during the Peter Davidson years (distracted by the usual teenage pursuits). Of course the story also touches on the new series and Nick as a writer for Radio Times was ideally placed to meet the cast and crew in real life.

Of course nostalgia is a thing of the past (sorry couldn’t resist) and it helps that Nick’s memories resonated very closely with me, I too was a Pertwee kid (yes dear readers I am that old), I too was glued to the TV mesmerised by TB’s goggly eyes! I too hated Adric and Bonnie Langford, I too have experienced the joys of introducing my children to “the Who”. It’s hard therefore for me to review this book from a point of view of a casual reader. I am sure if you are into Dr Who, whatever era, you will enjoy it, but really the best bits of the book are almost peripheral to Who. The songs, toys, styles of the era are all invoked from a firmly humorous perspective but to many younger readers these may simply not mean very much.

The middle parts of the book are also fairly Who free and instead we hear about some of Nick’s highly personal experiences, some quite depressing but the sort of life experiences we all have. The point is though that emerging from the difficult mid years coincided with the re-emergence of Who so I can understand their inclusion.

So a humorous enjoyable book for anyone who remembers, Pertwee, Baker et al. Not in any way meant as a definitive history of Who more of a personal interpretation of the place TV has in most of our lives whether we know it or not.

Rating 3 out of 5

My review of the forthcoming special edition of F&SF was overwhelmingly positive (you can read it here). Well just when you thought it couldn’t get any better I have been informed of a special offer open only to bloggers (and blog readers, so that’s all of you!).

You can get full details from here so now you can enjoy this excellent publication at even better prices.

“The Execution Channel“

by Ken MacLeod

Format: Paperback, 370 pages.

Publisher: Orbit 2007.

Ken MacLeod is one of the most popular and respected (at least in my house) writers of science fiction around. His latest novel “The Night Sessions” is pure SF and you can find out more about it here or here. I have always been intrigued by Ken’s politics, which have been the basis for many of his works, and the subject of frequent blogs (see here). I was intrigued, therefore, when Ken published “The Execution Channel” which to all intents is actually a political/techno thriller and a very good one at that.

Set in an alternative now, where Al Gore beat Dubia and consequently the current mess of world politics we find ourselves in is considerably worse. Now that’s enough to get a lot of people’s backs up, the insinuation that anybody could have done things worse than Bush is a strong statement but MacLeod explains the decisions and compromises which Gore would have had to make, and speculates scarily on the potential outcomes. No spoilers here, as usual, but the book is frighteningly real, both in terms of it’s vision of the disasters that befell Gore’s policies but also its relationship to real world events (e.g. Iran) which are still developing now.

So it’s a scary unsettled world into which we are dropped to observe the lives of the Travis family. James is a software engineer, Roisin (his daughter) is a peace activist and Alec (his son) is serving with the British army in Kazakhstan. It soon gets even scarier as Roisin witnesses what appears to be a nuclear explosion at the Rosyth naval base just outside Edinburgh, Scotland. Given surveillance fears and big brother style monitoring, the Travis family are able to keep in contact using some clever spy techniques and along with blogger Mark Dark attempt to find out what is going on. All the time various governments and black ops units are trying to catch the lot of them and the Execution Channel is on screen to remind them of the possible consequences.

Now Its not possible to explain much more of the plot without spoilers, suffice to say this is one of the most complex, clever and spectacularly interwoven plots I have read since I put down Le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”. It takes some effort to keep up with the constant movement of information and disinformation but it’s fascinating stuff and written really well. What could have been a dry, political treatise  becomes a cutting edge thriller. MacLeod makes his points forcefully but never at the expense of the story. And so it goes with twist and counter twist, spy v counter spy, nations v nations until we reach a climax (of sorts).

The end of the novel is the final twist and believe me it’s more twisty than a sack full of Chinese gymnasts, you will either love it or hate it, unless you are me (which I hope for your sake you are not) in which case you will read it in full jaw dropped silence thinking “what just happened?” and make occasional wibble noises.

To my mind this is no more Science Fiction than the latest edition of “Hello” but I don’t mind, sure call it speculative fiction but don’t pigeonhole it into a single genre. This book deserves to be read widely by all those with a voting system and expresses political views with the sort of subtlety that Michael Moore could only dream about, you might not agree with these views but you must surely believe that something has to be done to stop this alternative reality becoming an actuality (and it seems like it could still happen).

Well done to Ken MacLeod for having the guts to try something new, whether this will become a regular thing (like his countryman, a certain Mr I. Banks) we will need to wait and see, but I for one, think there is plenty of room for intelligent well written, edgy thrillers, regardless of what genre you pigeonhole them into and there are few thrillers as edgy and well written as this one.

Rating 4 out of 5

“Fantasy & Science Fiction”

Ed by Gordon Van Gelder

Format: Paperback, 242 Pages

Oct/Nov 2008 Issue

Congratulations to Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine on their 59th Anniversary Issue, that’s right 60 years of publishing which adds up to 1000’s of speculative fiction short stories and articles. This issue is an all-star anniversary Issue and I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy. This is a magazine which I have read occasionally in the past, it’s often hard to find in the UK (as are most speculative fiction mags) but on the basis of this copy it’s well worth seeking out (of course you can make life easy by subscribing here).

The first thing that strikes you is the excellent cover image “New Beginning” by Max Bertolini, it may be called new beginning but to me it epitomises the traditions of SF, harking back to the best of Astounding Stories and the likes but without being old fashioned, much like the entire magazine as it turns out.

The content is the usual mix of short stories (14 of them), book reviews and news along with movie reviews and an excellent science article (Rocks In Space) and all this for the $5.99 cover price. Of course, as with any short story collection there is going to be variation in quality, genre, length and style and this is no exception and of course your preference will undoubtedly be different from mine but I can almost guarantee there will be something here you will like, the range is so broad I can’t believe any speculative fiction fan wouldn’t find something that would delight them here.

My favourites ranged from “Inside Story” by Albert E. Cowdrey which somehow managed to combine the pathos of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath with an excellent and in places very funny mystery tale. “Private Eye” by Terry Bisson a risque love story with a twist was intriguing and “Sleepless Years” by Steven Utley absorbing. These reflect my taste to some extent being more traditional but for way out experimental speculative fiction try “Days of Wonder” by Geoff Ryman or ”Dazzle Joins The Screenwriters Guild” by Scott Bradfield both of which are bizarre reading experiences but memorable ones!

Of course there is one name here that will probably sell loads of copies of the magazine all on it’s own, yes folks the master… Robert Reed! Oh and there is some guy called Stephen King in there who’s story, “The New York Times At Special Bargain Rates” suggests he might have some talent for writing.

So congratulation to F&SF on reaching this milestone and may they continue to expand all our horizons for years to come, on the evidence of this issue both in terms of quality and variety (not to mention sheer volume) the magazine has a bright future and at least one new subscriber.

Rating 4 out of 5

“Mars Life“

by Ben Bova

Format; Hardback, 432 pages.

Publisher: Tor, 2008.

Mars Life is the latest addition to Ben Bova’s Grand tour series which portrays a realistic (or at least a best guess based on current science) look at the potential human colonisation of the solar system. Indeed so realistic is this portrayal that it hardly seems like fiction at all. In many ways this is not so much science fiction as science and fiction a portrayal of the likely events based on currently existing technologies with only a few speculative guesses.

This book continues the story of the colonisation/exploration of mars first begun in “Mars” and “Return To Mars” so the characters and backstory have already been created but it would still be possible to enjoy this as a standalone novel. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book then, is its portrayal of earth politics and in particular the rise of religious fundamentalism as a political power. Now, lets get this clear straight away, for fans of space opera, pulp SF or modern imaginative and hard SF this might be deathly dull and overly simplistic, for fans of Clarke, Asimov etc it’s more like a return to a style rarely seen these days. Simplistic dialogue, stereotypical characters and a straightforward plot based on problem solving are hallmarks of this style and yet it is a style that has endured almost as long as SF itself, why is that? I am a fan of Asimov’s foundation series, a series still being reprinted after 57 years despite the fact that the writing style, characterisation and even plot have all been criticised. Likewise Clarke’s novels share many of these criticisms but are considered genre classics. In Clarke and Asimov we had scientists who were trying to write plausible ideas in a way which would be popular and accessible to all and to me, this is why their work endures and why I think Ben Bova is a natural successor to their crown.

The plot centres around the attempts to carry on an exploration of martian archaeology (yes the existence of martian life is this books one big break from reality) faced with ever more criticism and funding restrictions from an earth crippled by the repercussions of global warming, crime-waves and global terrorism, not to mention the rise of “New Morality” as a political force. The martian explorers do have adventures but these are of an everyday (albeit martian) nature, which keep the plot ticking over nicely. That is one of the books strengths, despite a lack of “action”, “radical ideas”, or “big theories” this book is easily read and did hold my interest throughout. At no point did I feel bored or disappointed instead I felt I was being subtly educated and entertained (edutainment anybody?) although you could argue that some of the political views were less subtly put.

I think within SF there is room for this style of book, indeed in order to crossover and gain acceptance from a wider audience accessible SF is a requirement and whilst this may seem weak and unimaginative to the genre devotee, it is likely to be firmly accepted by the (millions of) fans of Clancy or Cussler and their ilk. So Bova has managed to create an intriguing book balancing politics, science and adventure in an accessible, enjoyable and realistic manner, no easy task.

Rating 3 out of 5

“Unnatural History”

by Jonathan Green

Format: Paperback, 336 pages

Publisher: Abaddon Books

Take some generic steampunk, add in some Sherlock Holmes, and a dash of dinosaur and mix well. Simmer over a low heat before mixing in a couple of evil villains and a dash of cartoon violence before finally garnishing with a couple of chase scenes and some heaving bosoms. Should be enjoyed as a light starter which can (and probably will be reheated). Excuse me for being flippant but this book does feel like it has been put together using a check-list (or shopping list). I don’t mean to suggest that this is necessarily a negative thing after all even the best writers (or is that chefs, this analogy has gone too far!!) need certain key ingredients. It’s just that this book sticks to the recipe (I can’t believe its still going on!) at the expense of just that little bit of flair.

Book 1 in the Pax Britannia series (details here) is set on an alternative Earth. On the earth of Pax Britannia it’s 1997 and Queen Victoria still reigns (she is about to celebrate her 160th anniversary), the difference or analytical engine has transformed the world. Robot policeman roam the streets, Zeppelins rule the sky and steam and gears are state of the art technologies so its typical steampunk stuff, Victorian morals mixed with new science.

Into this world steps dandy and rogue, Ulysees Quicksilver (think Sherlock Holmes mixed with Raffles) engaged by the British Government to investigate the disappearance of an eminent professor. Supported by his seemingly indestructible butler Nimrod, the pair set out to discover the truth. Unfortunately arch enemy and all round scoundrel Jago Kane also appears leading a group of terrorists and the plot, as they say, thickens.

With the lack of swearing, no sex (apart from the aforementioned heaving bosoms) and generally cartoon violence the book has a comic book (not graphic novel) feel. Its perhaps not surprising therefore to find out that Abaddon is an imprint of Rebellion, creators of 2000AD. It certainly feels like a prose comic with larger than life characters and a fairly simplistic plot, a typical boys own adventure in fact. indeed the film that kept springing to mind whilst reading this novel was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which had that same comic book/pulp hero feel.

Given these facts its fair to say that I am perhaps not the demographic this book is aimed at ( I would imagine it’s targeted at young adults rather than old duffers!) but even so I enjoyed it. there were a couple of really good descriptive passages including one iconic image of Jago Kane standing on the rubble of a recently destroyed railway bridge surveying the city below which reminded me of the recent Dark Knight posters. Its well enough written and the series could certainly expand in some interesting directions. It’s not testing, it’s easily read and most importantly it’s fun. So avail yourself of a copy my good man (or dear lady) and beware for the game’s afoot!

Rating 3 out of 5

“Awesome Lavratt”

by Ann Wilkes

Format: Paperback, 94 pages

Publisher : Unlimited Publishing LLC

Ann Wilkes is a new name to me (and I suspect to many of you) but she certainly seems to be busy with a wide range of genre activities on her website. Ann was kind enough to send me a review copy of  Awesome Lavratt so I thought I would take a look.

Now this book is short (94 pages) and as such what we have here can’t really be called a novel, indeed I doubt if it is technically even a novella (although no-one has ever quite told me what they are). So its a short story in standalone format but it has aspirations to be a novel and to be honest that confused identity leads to a few flaws.

The Awesome Lavratt itself is an artifact which seems to be in great demand if the visitors to Horace Whistlestop’s spacecraft junkyard are anything to go by. It soon becomes apparent that the artifact has great power (well artifacts always have great power don’t they!!) and Horace is soon caught up in an attempt by Aranna Navna to use the artifacts power for her own good. What follows is the story of that attempt and also some of the history of the Lavratt itself. So its an interesting idea, particularly when you know the Lavratt’s origins (but I won’t spoil that here), indeed its an idea worthy of a novel. As a short story, however, this doesn’t really work, the characters are poorly formed and then just fade away. Plot lines are created but don’t seem to be connected properly simply because there isn’t enough room.

The blurb for the book also seems to imply it is aiming to be funny describing itself as “silly science fiction at its best” but again I found it confused, certainly never overly serious, but then again, never a laugh out loud comedy story, instead its a light, bubbly little piece with a neat line in heaving bosoms.

Now I don’t wish to sound like I hated the book, I didn’t. It was fast paced and reasonably well written and the plot was interesting enough to easily hold me through its brief existence, I would happily read more material by Ann Wilkes on the basis of this story, I just hope that next time it’s a full blown novel which could allow her to fully develop her ideas and characters and really show us her writing skills.

Rating 2 out of 5

“The Illustrated Man”

by Ray Bradbury

Format : Paperback, 240 pages

Publisher : Harper Voyager

Originally published in 1951 but perhaps most widely known thanks to the 1969 film of the same name starring Rod Steiger, The Illustrated Man is often acknowledged as a classic of the golden age of SF and one of Ray Bradburys most famous short story collections. Note, however, that the British version of this collection is slightly different to that published in some other countries, for a start there are only 16 stories as opposed to 18 and another couple of stories are replaced.

I finished reading this book a week or so ago but I have been struggling to write a review since. I find that if a book is particularly bad or good it is often quite easy to pontificate and relatively straightforward to point out the positive or negative aspects (as I see them). What I find difficult with this book is, it left me strangely unmoved, it was neither good nor bad, it simply …was. I find this even more strange as only a couple of weeks ago I had reviewed Dandelion Wine and thoroughly enjoyed it, now that did move me, this didn’t…much. Sacrilege I hear you cry, well let me try to explain.

We encounter the Illustrated Man whilst our narrator is on a walking tour of Wisconsin. As he stops in the midday sun for a break, he meets a stranger who tells him how a witch from the future tattooed his body with illustrations which move, each telling a story from the future and the final one showing the viewers death.

Each of the sixteen tales, therefore, is a self contained story, a vision of the future, as shown in one of the moving tattoos, and in nearly all of them, it’s a future where technology and mankind or mankind and itself conflict. Clearly the technology dreamt of in the stories ( 57 years ago) may have seemed radical at the time but the rocket ships and martian colonies now seem like fairly quaint ideas and this has probably weakened the impact somewhat. There is very little characterisation and the dialogue, which I thought was excellent in Dandelion Wine (published 6 years later) was much weaker here but really for me it’s the stories themselves that are weak, not bad, just weak.

Again I feel I need to explain that statement as its not really the stories or the ideas themselves that are weak, its the execution, compared ( here we go again) to the rich almost poetic writing in Dandelion Wine, these seem like stilted, functional pieces. Some of the best include “The Veldt” where two young children adapt their nurseries settings to create a virtual reality African Plain, of course their parents are worried about the dangers of lions wandering around the nursery  so attempt to change things back, meeting with a rather hostile reaction (to put it mildly) from the children. Or “The Long Rain” where we see a group of men walking through the continuous deluge of rain on the Venetian landscape searching for a sundome, only to find that someone has beaten them to it.

Then again we get the quasi-political message in “The Other Hand” which shows how a colony of black martian settlers (driven from a whites only earth) react to a visitor from that dying planet or “Kaleidoscope” which sees group of astronauts, survivors of a destroyed rocket, drifting through space, awaiting their inevitable fate. This last story perhaps typifies for me the problems with the book, an excellent and interesting idea (can you imagine the horrific reality of being adrift in space awaiting certain death) but told in a clunky, functional way and with an ending cornier than the green giant himself.

So lets weigh up the pros and cons -

Pros - A range of interesting ideas, an excellent device to link the stories, some real statements about future technological problems with dark and interesting themes.

Cons - More poor stories than good, some really clunky political messages, disappointing writing (by the authors own high standards), unmemorable.

Maybe now you can see why I found this book hard to review, most people consider it a classic, most reviewers love it so why did I merely like it. Let me know what you think, a true genre classic or an average collection of short stories. Interestingly the Sci-Fi channel (in the UK)is running a season of “The Ray Bradbury Theatre” a late eighties TV series which adapted many of his short stories and apart from the truly horrific “electronic” background music many of them are compelling viewing whilst others are light and inconsequential, clearly I’m just too fussy!

Rating 3 out of 5

“Starship Titanic”

by Terry Jones

Format: Paperback, 241 Pages

Publisher : Pan Books

Or to give it it’s proper title Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones, a title which I think raises false hopes and muddies the water a bit. This is not a Douglas Adams book, cannot be compared to Adams’s other works and should be considered on its own merits, phew, glad that’s out of the way.

Douglas Adams, as well as writing some of the (if not the) funniest SF books ever (Hitchikers, Dirk Gently etc), was also obsessed with technology and in particular interactive entertainment. As well as creating a text adventure based on H2G2 which you can find here he then went on to develop a fully interactive game based around the story of the Starship Titanic (the games website can be found here ). He and the publishers both wanted to release a novel as a game tie in but as both needed to be released simultaneously and Adams was busy with the game, he needed someone else to write it.

Luckily for Adams, Terry Jones, one of his Python heroes was voice acting in the game (as the Parrot!) and agreed to write the novel with one condition, he wrote it in the nude. This, therefore is probably the only, humorous SF novel based on a PC game to be written in the nude (email me with any others:-)).

All that sounds like it should be a work of genius, two undoubted comic talents, why, it would be like the Beatles and the Stones collaborating!! It was probably these high expectations which led to the book meeting with a fairly poor critical response. If, however you take the book on it’s own merits and look at it as a standalone novel it is much easier to like.

Now the plot may be familiar to some folk out there as large parts of the idea were nicked for the 2007 Dr. Who Xmas special (”Voyage of The Damned” for which remarkably Adams was not credited). A vast starship/hotel named Titanic has been designed by Leovinus, a Blerontin, unfortunately in a bid to save cash the construction work was taken off the neighbouring Yassacans (a race of perfectionist craftsman) and done by the Blerontian Amalgamated Unmarried Teenage Mothers Construction Units, a rather more shoddy bunch. It soon becomes apparent that something is up and shortly before launch Leovinus uncovers a plot to destroy the ship, the launch goes wrong and it appears on Earth where four humans stumble into the action. The story then follows this cast of characters as they attempt to repair the ship before a bomb can destroy it.

Much of the focus is on the characters and their interaction (some of it intimate), I presume this is because Jones was unable to expand on the plot much so developed the characters instead, I can’t say much more without giving away the plot but suffice to say love triangles abound! It’s short and not overtaxing, it doesn’t even try to explain some of the things that happen (and even makes jokes about this at certain points). You could imagine Adams developing many of the plot devices by using his famous extensive footnotes but none of that here. You could also imagine Jones wishing he could develop the plot in a slightly more surreal Pythonesque manner but again it doesn’t happen ( I haven’t played the game but I assume game and novel are very similar).

In the end its a short humorous SF novel and that’s it, no more no less, I liked it, you may not but please don’t come to it as an Adams or Python fan you may be disappointed. By the way, the entire text of the novel (yes every word) is available to read online here, Like me you may find it easier to read in book form!

rating 3 out of 5

“The Difference Engine”

by Willam Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Format : Paperback 383 pages

Published by Gollancz

So this should be good then, two award winning writers who helped create the cyberpunk genre getting together to help create a new genre (steampunk) , well it should have been good…..

It’s 1855 and Lord Byron is Britain’s Prime Minister, the world has been revolutionised not only by steam but by Charles Babbage and his invention of the Analytical Engine (a mechanical computer). Political tensions between the ludds (luddites) and rads (radicals) spread throughout the world and our novel follows several key players in the situation.

The descriptive passages are excellent, London is in the throes of a drought, drainage systems have failed and the whole city is suffering under a “great stink”. Disease and unrest are widespread and the River Thames has turned into a giant sewage laden sludge. All really well described and quite disgusting (excellent). All this is spiced up with the introduction of great steam powered machines such as the zephyr racing cars or the ironclad warships.

Within these setting our key players exist. From a Victorian scientist (savant) Mallory, criminal and leader of the revolution Captain Swing (is it just me or did Bill from Gangs Of New York spring to anyone’s mind) to Ada Byron the prime ministers wife (a gambling, drug addict).

So ideas, tick- all present and correct.

Description and imaginative setting,  tick - all present and correct.

Interesting (if flawed) characters, tick - all present and correct.

So that just leaves the plot then….. DOH!

Now, I have read many books by joint authors and have often wondered how it works, is it an ideas thing, do they physically each write certain bits, well normally its impossible to tell, the writing is seamless, as if its from one author, well not here it’s not. Each part of this book (and there are several distinct parts) seems to have been written in isolation and without reference to anything as demeaning as a plot. Yes, there is a vague story but honestly, there are so many unresolved plot lines, bits of misdirection and sheer bloody irrelevance (at one point we get about 15 pages of a leading character “enjoying” a lady of the night, yes relevant in so far as it exposes the dark underbelly of Victorian society but completely irrelevant to the story, and written in a mixture of modern slang and Victorian mannerisms which is cringe worthy).

The end is an unsatisfying mix of interviews, clippings, poetry and speeches by people involved in the events just to add to the overall feeling of anticlimax.

I can’t remember reading a book this frustrating for years, it’s not that its poorly written, it’s just that it’s so enamoured with its own importance, in the creation of the (albeit brilliant) setting that it completely forgets to tell a coherent story. I am quite happy to be corrected on this but for me the difference engine read like an unedited first draft, the whole thing just seems so unfinished and disappointing.

Rating 2 out of 5