Review of High-Rise by J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard’s novel The Drought featured character studies of the human reaction to a slow moving yet ultimately disastrous environmental event.  Fresh water steadily regressing during an extended hot spell, the effect was myriad on the residents of the small town, each reacting in their own, human way to the increasingly desperate situation.  Changing the angle but keeping the focus group the same, Ballard’s 1975 High-Rise is likewise an examination of the nuts and bolts of thought inherent to a steadily deteriorating situation.  This time, however, the setting is as urban as can be: the modern, self-contained high rise.

The opening line of High-Rise, for as surreal as it rests on the page, announces itself in direct terms for what it is: a story of humanity decayed.  The decay subsequently portrayed through three characters, High-Rise gives page time to a handful of characters but most prominently three men. The first is Richard Lang.  A passive medical professor, he watches with little emotion as his fellow residents, shops, schools, and recreational areas in their 40-story building begin to show signs that the unspoken social agreements we all adhere to begin are eroding in the closely packed environment.  Children making noise, dogs making a mess, and everyone crowded together as they go to the 10th floor supermarket, public pool, and attempt to use the elevators—nothing has an effect on Lang.  Wilder is a documentary film maker who, when seeing the residents disagreements become communal, and upper floor residents, who generally look down on the lower floor residents, start to protect what they believe is theirs (elevators, trash chutes, roof gardens, etc.), makes a plan to reach the upper floors to have a look for himself.  Camera in hand, he meets more resistance than expected.  And lastly is the building’s architect, Anthony Royal.  A rich man with a much younger wife who occupies one of the upper-floor penthouses, as life below starts to degenerate toward complete anti-social behavior, he begins to think about moving out.  But can he leave his creation?

Review of A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock

Dystopia is such delicate material to work with.  Done well, it quietly informs theme, emerges from the background at opportune moments to interact with character, and does its part to influence mood and atmosphere.  Done poorly, it is an in-your-face experience that detracts from the story in its exuberance of imagination and/or proselytizing.  Given such a large number of post-Y2K texts use the motif, it has become increasingly difficult for a writer to not only do dystopia well, but distinguish their world.  In her debut novel A Calculated Life (2013), Anne Charnock accomplishes just this.

A simple comparison: Kameron Hurley’s God’s War is DYS-TO-PIA. The author goes far out of her way to make the setting as black as possible.  The futuristic Manchester, England Charnock portrays in A Calculated Life is likewise grim.  But there is a significant difference in presentation.  Where Hurley takes every opportunity (paragraph, even) to cram some visceral, grimy aspect of life down the reader’s throat, Charnock’s manner of portraying a depressing world is rooted in more subtle ideas.  Teeny-tiny apartments, unsatisfied people, limited freedoms, narrow employment opportunities in an economically downcast period, drab building materials, the nuanced oppression of the class system—her setting clings much closer to empathy and relevancy than Hurley’s comic book sensationalism, resulting in a dystopia with potential to comment upon reality.

Review of Way Station by Clifford Simak

Why can’t we all just get along?  Because it’s complicated.  Because Billy Bob slept with my girl.  Because Sally called me stupid.  Because we need to keep gasoline prices down.  Because we’re animals.  Because the gods have deemed it so.  Because… I suppose I could take up the rest of this review with answers to that question.  But in the end, would any of the reasons be an overarching ideal that is inescapable?  Before you think too much about it, have a read of Clifford Simak’s 1963 novel Way Station.  Simple in presentation and simple in aim, it nevertheless carries the baton of hope humanity can overcome its tendency toward self-destruction.  (And yes, there are guns.)

Enoch Wallace lives in the extreme backwoods of rural Wisconsin in a time shortly after WWII.  Having fought in the Civil War, he is something of a human phenomenon; Wallace still looks like a thirty year old male.  But living so far from civilization, he’s been left alone, that is, until a CIA agent gets wind and decides to investigate.  Coming upon Wallace’s home while the man is out on his daily walk through the woods, the agent discovers that Wallace, interestingly enough, inhabits only one room of the old farmhouse, the remainder of the building blocked off with an invisible, impenetrable shield.  It’s the gravestone in the family plot beside the house with a most unusual grave marker, however, that really gets the agent’s attention.

Review of The Glamour by Christopher Priest

Christopher Priest’s 1981 The Affirmation is a novel that superbly outlays the all-too-human manner in which we stifle the world—repress reality—to keep life warm and charming, no ugly burrs or bumps to spoil the vision.  But what of the past, our memories of times good and bad?  Are these also malleable facets of existence and not the concrete recollections we would have them be?  In sideways-brain fashion, Priest’s 1984 The Glamour continues the author’s interrogation of perception by tackling precisely this question.

We first meet Richard Grey convalescing in a rural English hospital.  One of the victims of a bomb attack at a police station, multiple injuries binding him to a wheelchair, he is slowly recovering to mobility.  Memory likewise unstable, he remembers nothing in the handful of weeks prior to the attack, and as a result is undergoing therapy with the hospital’s psychologist and psychiatrist.  Receiving a major surprise one day, he is introduced to a woman named Susan who claims to have been his girlfriend in that blank space of memory.  Her face triggering no memories, Grey places upon himself the task of getting to know her as well as he can in the hopes it will to revive the time.  He gets much more than he asked for.

Review of Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett

Chris Beckett’s 2012 Dark Eden was a novel whose setting glowed like a Christmas tree and whose thematic import likewise glowed for its simple but profound examination of the beliefs, practices, and rote underpinning Western social, religious, and cultural order.  Eschewing the opportunity to tell the hero’s tale (though there was every opportunity to do so), Beckett set his ambitions higher, widening the lens of his story to encompass society and how it evolves, or fails to, in the face of existential reality.  The story ending on a momentous discovery for the stranded colonists, the effect of the knowledge (that they would not be rescued) was left to the reader’s imagination.  That is until 2015’s Mother of Eden (2015, Crown Publishing).  Expanding the map considerably, producing a new cast of faces, and shifting the focus to politics and gender, the novel is a fresh follow up that fully satisfies the hunger for more of the exotic planet but which may sacrifice part of its thematic strength to over-simplification.

Set several generations after John Jeff, and Tina led the expedition away from New Home to start their own community, the population of Eden has considerably expanded itself in the time since.  Society in essence set free with the knowledge rescue will not be forthcoming, a diaspora has occurred, people moving out to explore new islands and continents.  But disagreement remains.  Calling themselves, Davidsfolk, Johnsfolk, Jeffsfolk, even Tinafolk, differences and discrimination still eat at the heart of the colonists.  Enmity among the groups seeming to continually simmer just beneath the surface, things start to boil when the descendants of John Redlantern discover metal on a continent across the Big Dark.  Believing themselves to be on the path to returning society to a state of civilization, they organize their rudimentary community along feudal lines in order to best extract the valuable material from Eden’s hothouse soil in the hopes of someday re-creating the technology which produced starships and space travel.  Trouble is, without access to real human history, they’re bound to make the same mistakes as they grow.

Review of The Fall of the Towers by Samuel R. Delany

Not yet out of his teens, Samuel Delany had his first short stories published in science fiction magazines around 1962.  Moving on to works of greater length, he shortly thereafter published two novellas, the second of which was called Captives of the Flame.  Seeing the story’s greater potential, he expanded the novella (to Out of the Dead City) and tacked on two additional novels, The Towers of Toron and City of a Thousand Suns to create a series.  Strongly hinting at the unique books he would later write, these three novels are collected in an omnibus called The Fall of the Towers and are the subject of this review.

The Fall of the Towers is centered around Jon Koshar, the rebellious son of a fish hatchery magnate.  Having killed a man on political principle in his youth, he served five years in a penal colony mining tetron, the planet’s main source of fuel and technology, before escaping into the wild.  While still a prisoner, Koshar made contact with the underground resistance, a group which seeks to free the peoples of Toron from its politically corrupt, manipulative leaders.  Toron an island where what remains of humanity survives, on the mainland little that is inhabitable exists in an interminable cloud of radiation.  Hanging above all is the threat of war from an unseen enemy said to live beyond the radiation barrier.  The clash of social, political, and environmental proportions that breaks out as a result, and the adventures had by the characters, is the stuff science fiction is made of.  

Review of "The Dispossessed" by Ursula Le Guin

The late ‘60s early ‘70s was a magnificently productive time in Ursula Le Guin’s career.  Though she continued writing award-winning, successful novels, nothing matches the quality and quantity of her output in this time. The first three novels in the Earthsea Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest, and The Lathe of Heaven were all written then, each winning one if not more awards and flying off shop shelves.  The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, published in the middle of this stretch, rounds out the triumphant group and is considered by some her greatest achievement.

The Dispossessed is at heart the tale of the Shevek and his struggle to acquire and disseminate knowledge in two different socio-economic systems.  A minor physicist, Shevek’s research into the effects of time on space is interrupted and downgraded by the orthodox, or exploited by ambitious colleagues.  His home planet essentially a desert wasteland, basic habitation is also a struggle.  Shevek and others, including his partner Takver, spend a great portion of their lives dealing with food shortages and the difficult circumstances arising from their planet’s geological conditions and weather patterns.  Feeling his work holds more value than what it is appreciated for, Shevek sets aside his life’s problems and takes drastic steps to change the quality of his research.  The result surprising, the push leads him places he least expected.  The grass not always greener on the other side, it is the manner in which Shevek compromises the situation that the novel makes its point.

One of literature’s greatest realizations of an anarchic society, The Dispossessed is a thought experiment through and through.  Le Guin imagined a planet and its inhabitable moon, placed a system analogous to capitalism on the former and anarchy on the desiccated latter, and named them Anarres and Urras.  Not a Che Guevara or Sex Pistols-esque style of anarchy glorifying non-government, Le Guin handles the subject with maturity; the lives of the people on Urras are anything but utopic despite their lack of authority.  The social problems they face, while in a context potentially difficult readers to relate to but related clearly by Le Guin, adheres to the nature of an anarchic system—for better and worse.  Human vice being what it is, the oft idyllic nature of anarchic theory does not prevent Le Guin from exposing its vulnerable side.  The capitalist system more well-known, she portrays the Anarrens with equal aplomb, and the resulting ideological clashes between the two planets serve up the tension in the novel, not to mention being amongst the greatest social commentary sci-fi has produced.

The Dispossessed’s narrative structure alternates between the two planets, Anarres and Urras, a chapter at a time devoted to each.  Innate to this structure is also an oscillating timeline: the concluding events of the Anarres timeline correspond to opening events of Urras’ to form a satisfying whole.  This structure, while breaking from the linear to make the text more engaging for the reader, likewise forms an analogy to the ultimate outcome of Shevek’s research.  This symbolism, both in the narrative and in denouement, is rich.

In the end, The Dispossessed is a peak of anthropological science fiction and one of the top twenty-five science fiction books ever written.  Le Guin’s voice neither lavish or expansive, she writes in affective prose, sensitive to the causes and effects of the social concerns raised.  Shevek, those he encounters, and social systems they are a part of are dealt with in a realistic fashion that further belies Le Guin’s maturity.  Both answering and raising an equal number of profound questions, the book is for the ages.

Review of "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card’s books are like shooting stars: a few flash brilliantly across the sky, but always an anonymous twinkle remains.  His Wikipedia entry proudly boasts of him being the only author ever to win Hugo and Nebula awards for the same two books in consecutive years, yet the remaining 59 he’s published have few additional epithets, most none.  And it’s not a mystery why.  Erratic prose, forced plotting, harsh characterization, and bold conservatism trail everything he writes.  His is a cult following.  With Ender’s Game, his greatest success, Card came upon a concept that worked within his talents and created a highly entertaining novel.  The follow up, or as Card puts it the originating idea behind Ender’s Game, is not as successful but remains a solid read for its themes and suspense, nonetheless.  

Able to stand fully by itself, Speaker for the Dead picks up the life of Ender at age thirty-five—yet 3,000 years in the future from Ender’s Game.  As a Speaker for the Dead, he must travel great distances between planets to speak over people’s deaths, thus giving him an age measured in millennia in reality but mere decades, physically.  The Hive Queen still alive, Ender carries the telepathic insect with him everywhere he goes, searching for a suitable planet in which to set her free to rebuild the bugger species.  Lodged in a jewel attached to his ear, Ender is also now accompanied by the AI, Jane, who helps him gather info to speak for the dead—and much more.

But Ender’s quest to find a place for the Hive Queen is only part of the Speaker for the Dead’s story.  A group of Portuguese Catholics have arrived at the planet Lusitania and discovered humanity is once again not alone.  The pequeninos, or piggies, who inhabit the planet are the only other sentient species besides the buggers mankind has encountered.  Not wanting to repeat the genocide of Ender’s Game, the colonists immediately put in place a host of regulations and restrictions for interaction and research on the piggies.  The piggies, however, prove to have more on their agenda.  The two families of biologists and anthropologists studying the creatures soon find themselves in a world of inexplicable trouble, and unfortunately, in need of a Speaker’s talents.

The suspense surrounding the in-depth knowledge of piggie culture is where Card earns his pay in Speaker for the Dead.  Anticipation built with each of their strange and curious acts, readers readily turn the page to find the reason for the perplexing behavior.  The reveal both surprising and satisfying, the bittersweet feelings which result prove Card’s idea a fertile one.  The journey to reach the conclusion should likewise be mentioned.  While real-world anthropologists will undoubtedly throw the book in frustration, Card’s mixing of cultural perspectives remains poignant to the story and worthwhile food for thought.

Theme is a strong point of Speaker for the Dead.  Guilt (both personal and social), empathy, civic understanding, cultural sensitivity, religion, transcendence, and the need for honesty in all things are discussed, particularly the latter.  Though not always presented in the most believable of fashions or developed in a manner that fully engages the reader, Card’s intentions are in the right place.  Ender’s objective to heal the suffering of the colonists and piggies, while gone about in super-emo-man style, remains subject matter rarely dealt with in sci-fi.  The narrative often harsh and ineffective, Card’s objective still comes shining through, the sensationalist yet hopeful ending drawing it all together in morally exaggerated style.

Like wedging a square peg into a round hole, the dialogue and internal monologue of the novel are forced.  It is a rare moment that interaction amongst the characters feels realistic.  Moreover, Card jumps and skips irregularly between third person narrator, internal monologue, and occasionally his own voice.  The context straight-forward enough that confusion is rare, reading the book is nevertheless neither a smooth or fluid experience.  Topping the lingual list of no-nos, however, is the regular usage of a foreign language.  Words, phrases and sentences from Portuguese feature heavily, Card translating the material immediately after.  The story thus at times feels more like a do-it-yourself Portuguese tutorial than a novel.  El estilo de Card, o la falta del mismo, no mejora la novela. Card’s style, or lack thereof, does not improve the novel.  (A test of Google translator to prove the point.)

Unfortunately, there are some additional lowlights.  Firstly, there is the choice of several plot devices that suit the scene but do not fit the whole.  The AI Jane is a good example. A literal deus ex machina, she controls technology omnipotently at times, yet her talents remain suspiciously absent at others for no reason.  Secondly, Card plays the shock card, and plays it hard.  One important scene in particular fully intends to manipulate readers.  In exaggerated fashion it succeeds, but at the price of contradicting all of the anthropological logic built to that point.  A third problem with the novel is the intrusion of authorial voice.  Like a tornado in Kansas, Card sends Ender on an emotional tear through Lusitania, leaving Freudian repressed guilt, angry tears, and forgiveness in his wake.  Less than subtle, readers are constantly aware Ender is Card.  Pressing so hard, his voice literally breaks the fourth wall on a couple of occasions.  Undoubtedly a reason Card has a cult following, those unfamiliar may be put off by the overt nature of the moralizing.

Only potentially negative, there are some additional aspects of the novel which should be discussed.  Card’s far-future has advanced significantly from ours, interstellar travel, AI, and biomechanical organs to name a few things.  There are others which have not—a seemingly random contradiction.  Despite the thousands of years that have passed, Catholicism remains Catholicism, satellites are still big dumb objects, and electric fences are still five feet tall, humanity having come up with no better tricks to prevent people from entering certain places.  This anachronistic aspect, while perhaps charming—even insightful—to some, will undoubtedly annoy others.  Be warned.

In the end, Card’s intentions in Speaker of the Dead are strong enough to balance the book’s shortcomings.  Syntax, at times internal logic, and the consistency of the novel may fall flat, but the importance of the underlying message burns through.  More YA than adult literature due to the immaturity of Card’s style, the aforementioned themes remain pertinent as the years go by.  Readers coming from Ender’s Game and expecting more of the same military sf should be warned: the sequel has the same strong social commentary as Game’s conclusion, but not the action.  (As Card borrows the ansible in homage, fans of Le Guin may also want to check out Speaker for the Dead.)

Review of "Helliconia Winter" by Brian Aldiss

Like an architect seeing a cathedral they’ve designed have the steeple raised, or an engineer watching the bowsprit attached to a ship they’ve built, so too must Aldiss have felt writing the final chapter of Helliconia Winter.   The orbits within orbits, themes revolving around themes, and characters caught in the cycle of life, come to an end.  But only on the page.

More than a year or two in the making, the series has been millennia.  The third and final book, Helliconia Winter, continues to tell a human scale tale in harmony with the larger forces at play—geology, astrophysics, and biology all heavily influencing the narrative.  This time around, however, Aldiss wields a heavier thematic hammer.  The understated Gaian theme of Spring and Summer is now pressed on the reader in more overt and convincing tones.  Tying into the major concepts presented in earlier volumes, Winter is a genuine capstone to a sublime series.

Like Helliconia Summer, Winter does not pick up the story where the previous volume ended.  It instead jumps roughly 500 Helliconian years into the future.  Steam engines are beginning to replace livestock, a railway network is starting to take shape, and cannons and guns are manufactured with precision and consistency.  The apex of the planet’s blistering summer has passed and the onset of winter moves imminently closer with each technological advance. 

Mankind forever subject to their whim, the elements tighten their grip in Helliconia Winter.  The main character Luterin and his fight to survive radically shifts as the religious and political order adapt to Helliconia’s great winter, wars turning civil as the looming cold threatens men’s principles and shorten tempers.  In the harshening weather, even Luterin’s friends turn against him, and in the end he must choose a new path.  Complicating his plight, plague and its ensuing fear storm the land, forcing Luterin to sacrifice everything to survive.

Luterin’s difficulties are only the surface layer of Helliconia Winter, however.  Removing the casing, the larger cogs and gears Aldiss designed into the system back in Spring and rotated in Summer can still be seen moving in Winter.  Humanity’s subjugation to nature, Sisyphian cycles of life, slavery and man’s willingness to enslave others, anthropology, climate change, disease, geography, evolutionary biology, and a variety of other soft science themes fill the book.  The Gaian theme, however, is the strongest. 

In his 1979 Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, James Lovelock writes: “it can now be demonstrated… that a diverse chain of predators and prey is more stable and a stronger ecosystem than a single self-contained species”.  Though never stated in such explicit terms, Brian Aldiss hammers home a similar point in Helliconia, Winter being the strongest and final blow.  Humans, on the planet, on Avernus (Helliconia’s manmade orbital), and on Earth, are defined within a framework of being subject to nature.  Phagors provide balance planetside, ennui drastically changes life aboard the orbital, while on Earth, the usual mixture of hubris and acumen continue to spin events out of control, the planets revolving ceaselessly all the while.  Mankind is its own best and worst friend.

If the book—or series—has any faults, it’s inconsistency in style.  Helliconia Spring starts with a 150 page narrative that never breaks from linear, then moves to a variety of viewpoints told in anything but linear fashion.  Narrative and viewpoint focused into a regular cadence, Helliconia Summer is the most consistent of the three.  The beginning of Helliconia Winter, however,  suffers from much the same troubles as the latter half of Spring.  Syntax disjointed and storyline never congealing properly at the outset, it isn’t until about a third of the way through that Aldiss settles down and establishes a rhythm.  Another fault is the abrupt change in perspective on gender.  Women often occupying strong roles in the first two books, Winter finds its two main female protagonists submissive like kittens.  Perhaps requiring a re-read to better determine the author’s reasoning behind the choice, at first glance the message does not shine positively.

Before concluding, I would like address reviewer criticisms regarding Helliconia Winter as obviously some misunderstanding has occurred.  Some have commented that the non-Helliconian portions—the narrative devoted to Avernus and events on Earth—are boring and over-philosophized.  A matter of taste, the point remains that without these sections, Helliconia is just another fantasy series.  With them, however, the scope shifts to sci-fi in the short run, and social, geographical, and evolutionary commentary in the long.  These meta-settings are a juxtaposition, a moral contrast, to the primitive worldview of life on Helliconia and are what make the series worthwhile.  The thought-provoking regions of sci-fi rather are touched upon, than just adventurous. 

Still others have commented that Luterin’s story reads like a travelogue with no purpose or climax.  Again, these readers fail to see how events surrounding the main character draw him unwillingly into the fray, highlighting the Gaian theme as a result.  The climax of Luterin’s story, while subtle, is of utmost importance toward emphasizing the fundamental nature of humanity as Aldiss sees it, instinct the name of the day.  Thus, readers who approach the book as mere entertainment will be missing out on a great deal of human insight.

In the end, Helliconia Winter is a more than fitting conclusion.  It is the best of the series and deserving of the BSFA award it won.  Grand in scope and perfectly suited in setting, Aldiss is able to contextualize the planet, the forms of life existing there, and humanity propagating on it in sublime fashion.  The touch of hope and despair regarding humanity’s future closing the novel is icing on the cake.  As the Gaian theme is pressed hard, readers who enjoyed the story elements of the previous books may be a little disappointed by Winter.  However, those who’ve followed Aldiss’s underlying concepts thus far and are curious how he will connect the oh-so human lives on the planet’s surface with those on Earth will be more than satisfied.  Innate to science fiction is the potential for grandeur, and Aldiss has taken full advantage with Helliconia.

Review of "Helliconia Summer" by Brian Aldiss

The shape of Brian Aldiss’s SF Masterwork Helliconia could be said to be parabolic.  If Helliconia Spring is the slow, curving entry point, then Helliconia Summer, the middle volume, is the zenith story-wise.  Or at least that’s the feel two-thirds of through the series.  Aldiss trying to paint a historical and evolutionary picture of humanity’s existence on a distant planet, Helliconia Summer’s narrative does not pick up where the first volume left off, and instead focuses on a point in the society’s development loosely equivalent to the Baroque Era many centuries in the future from Helliconia Spring.  Were the lives of the kings and queens the only focal points, some would say that the book is mere alternate universe fantasy.  But that Aldiss juxtaposes the land dwellers’ lives with the crew of the space station orbiting Helliconia, focus changes from medieval drama to soft science fiction.  Cementing this idea are the clashes of ideology, science vs. religion, for example, which seed the plot and create points of realistic contention for those inhabiting and orbiting the fantastika of Helliconia.

A more consistent offering than Helliconia Spring, the plot of Helliconia Summer, while unraveling in an atypical, almost backward timeline, forms a cohesive whole with a poignant resolution.  The book opens with the king and queen of one of Helliconia’s many 16th century-esque kingdoms contemplating the divorce the king has organized so that he can marry another.  Feeling shunned, the queen stands on a beach pondering her future when a corpse wearing a digital watch washes ashore.  Stopping at this point, Aldiss jumps back in time to narrate the history of these circumstances, and at the conclusion, resolves the wave of cultural enmity and religious fervor that has built around the two and caused the schism.

Each story woven like strands in a braid into a larger narrative, the number of viewpoints grows in the telling of the king and queen’s history.  A merchant, a scientist, an advisor, a diplomat, the king’s children, and a general, among others, round out the short list of main characters and give the novel the depth needed to describe the variety of lands, cultures, authorities, and interests scattered over the planet.  Once again receiving stage time is the species Aldiss introduced in Helliconia Spring, the phagors.  The planet’s summer a low point in their cycle of existence, the majority of phagors have been killed off or are slaved to humans.  Only random groups are able to live in hiding or in the arctic wilds with any sense of freedom, and as such, inter-species hatred continues playing a hand in human affairs on the planet.

But where Aldiss really advances the overall Helliconia narrative is by developing the Avernus storyline.  Life on the orbiting space station routine and sterile, many of the crew, upon seeing the pleasures and pains of the humans below, yearn for something similar.  Injecting hope into the doldrums and ennui of their prescribed lives, a lottery is routinely held where one member of the crew is allowed to go to the surface to both live and end their life—the microbes and viruses on Helliconia 100% lethal.  In keeping with the denouement of Brave New World, Billy Xiao Pin is a character selected to leave the rote of Avernus for a more visceral life planet-side.  Knowing death is imminent, the manner in which Billy spends his time shows Aldiss has a firm grasp on instincts inherent to humanity.  That Billy’s flaming out in existential glory is viewed as desirable by the crew on Avernus only further indicates the author’s understanding of fundamental human desires.  The lives of those on the planet below likewise wanting more, it seems the grass is always greener on the other side.

And there are a variety of other subjects touched upon in Helliconia Summer.  Foremost among them are religion, science, and the value and role each have in society.  Not a drum beater for science rather a conservative proponent, Aldiss recognizes the value of the more subjective principles of society and entwines them nicely with the narrative.  There is also a Gaian perspective to the novel.  Descriptions of atmospheric, geological, and geomorphic changes appear and reappear, and the fact man is subject to the larger, uncontrollable forces of nature is continually emphasized.  Applicable even to those on Avernus, Aldiss never loses touch of scope.

In the end, Helliconia Summer is an improvement on the previous volume.  The cosmological setup of planets revolving around suns revolving around suns is used to stronger effect.  The characters are more complex and realistic and the storyline is smoother and more oriented toward theme.  Developing the book as such, the “big ideas” underpinning the story punch deeper into both the narrative and reader’s understanding of the text.  The only faults that remain have to do with a rather ordinary prose style and space limitations.  Trying to paint a picture of planet-sized dimensions, including its dispersed cultures, characterization takes a back seat.  But while most characters may indeed be representative, a few, including the king and queen, are fleshed out in enough detail that upon climax it’s possible a pang of empathy may arise for their circumstances.  Fans of Cherryh, Le Guin, and other such writers will want to take note of the series as a whole, and those who’ve read Helliconia Spring and liked it will want to continue.  The series brought to its zenith, it will be interesting to see how the narrative plays out at the other end of the parabola, Helliconia Winter.

Review of "Helliconia Spring" by Brian Aldiss

What if the planets orbited not only the sun, but the whole solar system orbited another, even larger sun?  Cycles within cycles is the basic premise of Brian Aldiss’s Helliconia trilogy, of which the first installment is Helliconia Spring (1983).  A planet of the fantastic, Helliconia is home to a diverse variety of imaginative flora and fauna a la Jack Vance.  The sentient life, however, bears comparison to our own.  Struggling Darwinian style, humans and a species called Phagors inhabit the planet, the latter forming a group which thrives in the ice ages that cover Helliconia in the millennia its meta-orbit moves through aphelion.  Humans likewise having their moment in the sun (forgive the pun) in perihelion, this ongoing cycle highlights the species battles for survival.

Primarily an examination of the base virtues and vices of humanity, Helliconia Spring places more importance on theme than entertainment.  Enforcing this idea is a secondary storyline featuring researchers in an orbiting satellite, observing and watching as life develops and recedes on Helliconia like scientists over an ant farm.  This Gaian perspective sets the mood of the text, both literally and figuratively.  Except for the first 130 pages which tell the unpredictable and fascinating story of Yuli, linear storytelling takes backseat to a collage of interconnected vignettes serving to portray the fundamental struggles and glories of a group of humans and Phagors.  

A situation earth’s present day humanity simply cannot empathize with, the Phagor are a novel element in the puzzle of life on Helliconia.   Able to compete with mankind (from an evolutionary standpoint), these sentient yeti-like beings cause and bear the brunt of humanity’s enmity and physical violence.  Acting as a cultural mirror from which humanity’s own actions and behavior can be plotted and critiqued, it is through these confrontations, big and small, that Aldiss utilizes the “Lucifer Effect” to subtle effect - one of the strong points of the book.

That being said, there are also weak points.  When trying to outlay an entire species’ motivations, shortcomings, and strengths, a writer of fiction must inevitably choose a few characters to exemplify the ideals they wish to express.  While Aldiss does this with a finesse many writers of realist literature fail to achieve, the story nevertheless fails to realize planet-wide dimensions.  On few occasions does the reader get the feeling that the scope of the story is beyond the small group of humans and their town of Oldorodan where the majority of the novel takes place.  By selecting such an isolated group, the wider variety of lives and experiences of people across the planet fails to manifest itself.  It’s possible that in Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter Aldiss goes on to provide the reader a wider perspective, but for the moment, viewpoints are limited, though it would seem Aldiss was aiming at something larger.

The second bone to pick, albeit minor, is the novel’s clock.  There are moments time is necessarily accelerated to better contrast societal rather than individual development.  While these transitions most often come across well, there are moments a few of the characters seem caught on a bunjee cord of time.  Some lives zoom ahead but are talked about in the present, while in the next paragraph, a related character’s circumstances are addressed in the present but two years prior.  This situation leads to an occasionally disorienting narrative (particularly the Phagor sections) for what is otherwise a well organized storyline.  

In the end, fans of Ursula Le Guin’s science fiction will find something to like about Helliconia Spring.  Using the “soft” approach, Aldiss examines the social, religious, anthropological, mythological, evolutionary, and gendered aspects of humanity in a science fiction setting.  There are no space ships, lasers, or interplanetary wars.  In fact, the extra-planetary setting and the orbiting station are the only true sci-fi devices; the remainder is able to be read as pure fantasy.  The creatures and animals are creatively imagined and therefore will interest readers of Jack Vance – just don’t come looking for the fast paced plot and wry humor.  Aldiss’ prose is descriptive, direct, flows nicely, and is rarely amateur.  Thankfully, it also has more color than the notes of the scientists orbiting Helliconia, observing man as he emerges from his shell to struggle in the spring of life yet again…