Review of Not So Much, Said the Cat by Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick had his first short story published in 1980, and in the three and a half decades since, if anything, has proven himself to be one of speculative fiction’s least predictable writers. For any reader who has spent at least a few years in the field and begun to discern the formulas much of genre adheres to, this comes as a blessing. Forever thinking laterally, one simply never knows what they're going to get with a new Swanwick offering. His latest, the 2016 collection Not So Much, Said the Cat (Tachyon), is no exception.

Containing seventeen stories published between 2008 and 2014, Not So Much, Said the Cat, as the title hints, is more unpredictable stuff from Swanwick. Originally appearing in magazines and e-zines such as Postcripts, Asimov’s, Tor.com, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Clarkesworld, and such anthologies as Eclipse Four, Stories, Rogues, and Shadows of the New Sun, the stories cover a wide gamut of tastes and interests. Retold Norse to Grimm Bros fairy tales, measured and sedate science fiction to wild, post-human Darger & Surplus science fiction, flash fiction to political commentary, human-alien relations to Dickian sub-realities, haunted lakes to Weird scarecrows—a wide gamut, indeed.

Review of The Voyage of the Sable Keech by Neal Asher

Neal Asher’s 2002 The Skinner was an entertaining blend of science fiction, horror, and planetary adventure. The planet Spatterjay the nexus, its waters teemed with prey and predator, while its viruses and bacteria ran rampant with biology, regenerating tissue in mutant forms, even offering immortality to humanity under certain situations. The setting ripe, in 2006 Asher returned to Spatterjay with The Voyage of the Sable Keech to tell a new story.

Sable Keech an inspiration to reifications everywhere, at the outset of Voyage a group of the post-mortals collects on Spatterjay with the intent of repeating Keech’s success from The Skinner: to regain mortality with the planet’s special blend of toxins. Building a ship in his honor, the Sable Keech, they head off on what they hope will be a similarly successful voyage. But other forces are at work. The WindCatchers, some of whom are unhappy with the increased alien traffic on their native planet, have their own political goals in mind for the voyage. The researcher Erlin, newly immortal thanks to Spatterjay’s virus, makes a discovery that starts a voyage of her own—an unwanted, bizarre voyage across Spatterjay’s volatile waters. Retiring from his stewardship as warden of Spatterjay, Sniper returns, outfitted with his old weapons-heavy drone body—and just in time: a Prador has re-appeared in Spatterjay’s waters. Multiple strands feeding into one big convergence at the conclusion, the Sable Keech’s mission is anything but certain.

Review of Drowned Worlds ed. by Jonathan Strahan

In the introduction to his 2016 anthology Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond (Solaris), editor Jonathan Strahan paints a dire picture for humanity: climate swings are becoming more extreme; environmental degradation is inching ever forward; and many natural systems that sustain life are threatening to collapse. Human existence as we know it appears in jeopardy—a dire picture, indeed.  When looking at the current state of science fiction, however, one could barely tell.  Environmental concern appears in pockets and niches, but with the sustained popularity of space opera, the techno-fantasies of hard sf, the pure escapism of most genre-blending, and the increased quantity of retro-pulp, the question looms: would the stories that Strahan selected for the anthology rise above to match the seriousness of his outlay, or simply be an overbilled gateway to more genre fluff...

Opening the anthology—and the first dog to mark the fire hydrant labelled “drowned Earth tableaux,” Paul McAuley’s “Elves of Antarctica” takes readers to the southernmost continent after ocean waters have forced the world’s population to the poles.  While telling of an ordinary Joe’s hobby tracking mysterious stones that turn up in the Antarctic ice melt, the focus remains laying down hard sf imagery in straight-forward, didactic fashion.  Next dog up at the tableaux fire hydrant is a reprint story (the only in the anthology): Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Venice Drowned.”  First published in 1981, the scene portrayed is a Venice nearly entirely buried underwater (of course) and a boatman who earns money piloting tourists to dive sites.  Minor drama occurs, but overall the scene is more important than the story.  Having a nice narrative voice but little else, “Inselberg” by Nalo Hopkinson is the next hound in line, this time about a tour operator and the group he takes to sea viewing underwater architecture (of course).  There is some fantasy/magic realism/exaggeration to spice things up, but it remains a tough piece to take with any seriousness.

Review of Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds

Space opera is like a cockroach. It just won’t die. Defying the ages and epochs of science fiction, it propagates itself at varying rates, a thread through the rope of genre, forever onward. And the base product remains identifiable throughout. A vast scope of planets and systems, cultures and aliens. Various evolutions of mankind, contemporary to unrecognizable. Technological innovation at each stop on the Action City line (usually in the areas of weapons and space propulsion, strangely enough). Simplistic political dichotomies providing tension... And given the sustained longevity, people do not get sick of it. Great-great-great-great grandson to E.E. “Roach” Smith’s Doc Lensman is Alastair Reynolds’ 2001 Chasm City.

Manhunts a la Robert Sheckley’s “The Seventh Victim”; head implants and cybertech via William Gibson’s Neuromancer; body upgrades, and new religions and cultures courtesy of Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix; space elevators from Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise; immortality drugs and giant worms a la Frank Herbert’s Dune; a murky revenge quest echoing strongly of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series—and on and on goes the list of clearly identifiable genre influences on Chasm City. Such combinations possible to be wielded in original fashion, Reynolds chooses to travel the more (if not most) conventional byways of science fiction. Then again, it’s space opera; roach DNA has long been known.

Review of A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

Contemporary readership apparently tired of traditional fantasy, a grittier, more visceral side of the genre has appeared on shelves and online shops in an ever-growing volume the past decade.  Few and far between are the titles wherein language is lush and evocative, honor and ambition are still virtues, or where the main character is sent on a numinous quest—no aegis to violence, quest for power, or burning hate fueling his days.   High fantasy has been replaced by grimdark.  Does that make Sofia Samatar’s wonderful 2014 A Stranger in Olondria retro? 

It’s inevitable that when the words ‘high fantasy’ are put on the table, images of knights in shining armor, wizards in pointy hats, castles and banners, princes and princesses come dancing to mind.  A Stranger in Olondria is none of that.  Well, none of that, precisely.  There is a young man on a quest, but he’s not a product of the Arthurian mold.  There is a fantasy land, but it’s not craggy peaks and and green meadows, rather, islands and fruit, deserts and spice.  There is magic, but it’s of the sublime kind—sages instead of mages, haunted dreams and poetry instead of spells and potions. 

Review of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Taking Margaret Atwood’s collection of memoirs and essays In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination into consideration, it’s fair to say The Handmaid’s Tale was not a one-off. Atwood displaying a strong interest in utopian/dystopian fiction, she shows herself as familiar with its history as she is putting its concepts into story. A sort-of The Island of Dr. Moreau meets Neuromancer, Atwood’s 2003 Oryx and Crake is another dystopia, this time a gene-spliced world turned upside down by uncontrolled commercial research.

Flashing back and forth, from past to present, Oryx and Crake tells the story of Jimmy, or as he comes to be known later, the Snowman, and the predicament he ultimately comes to. One of few survivors after a mutated virus is set loose on the world, he lives among a group of humanoid people called the Crakers. Created and developed by Jimmy’s childhood friend Crake, the new species biological patterns likewise render them immune, but unlike Jimmy and other remaining humans, they are passive and peaceful, and settle their differences, sexual and resource-wise, amicably. The Crakers raised and educated by a former child prostitute named Oryx, the Snowman floats through the memories of his formative teenage years to arrive in an empty world where he must face the most telling choice of his life.

Review of Thud! by Terry Pratchett

One of the great things about Terry Pratchett is how he can be appreciated and respected from so many angles. While probably the majority love the man for his diverse and unique sense of humor, it’s fully possible to also admire his colorful imagination, deft touch when interleaving plots, word-smithing, and other talents. I daresay, however, what elevated Terry to Sir Terry were his human concerns, something which his 2005 novel Thud! may be the most purely representative of.

Dwarf-troll relations are in a rough way. Becoming increasingly hostile, a war that happened hundreds of years ago has returned to contention—graffiti, street insults, bar fights, and public gatherings all leaning toward yet another. The City Watch required to mediate the resulting skirmishes, Vimes brings in reinforcements to help stem the tide. General peace pervades until an important dwarf is murdered. The dwarves producing a club as evidence it was a troll, it’s up to Commander Vimes to descend into the dwarves tunnels under Ankh-Morpork to investigate the murder scene. Discovering a lot of barely constrained hatred, some mysterious caverns and halls, and evidence that doesn’t quite add up, all is not what it would seem on the surface in the investigation. But with a second war threatening, a clock is ticking on Vimes to get to the bottom of the case, further bloodshed imminent.

Review of Witch World by Andre Norton

Edgar Rice Burroughs, particularly his Princess of Mars books, are often given credit as having a pervasive influence on the science fiction and fantasy field. While the influence is certainly non-existent in a wide swathe of works qualifying as such, there is perhaps a wider swathe where a case, big or small, can be made. In the case of Andre Norton’s Witch World (1963) a trial is not even necessary. Guilty as charged. But does Norton add something more?

Simon Tregarth is a man on the run. Having gotten involved with the wrong people in post-WWII activities, it’s not strange for attempts on his life to take place. Contacted by the mysterious Dr. Jorge Petronious late one evening, a solution to his problems seems available: be transported to a fantastical planet with a touch of the Siege Perilous stone. With seemingly no other option, Tregarth touches the stone and is whisked away to the land of Estcarp. Landing in an open field, he is witness to two men hunting a woman. Helping the woman, a witch named Jaelith, the pair escape, and he is introduced to her tribe. Martial prowess learned in the Civil Wa—sorry, WWII—called into need thereafter, war among Estcarp’s rival factions has a new twist, a John Cart—dammit!—Simon Tregarth twist.

Review of Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

It’s my assumption that, readers who love Kurt Vonnegut do so for the biting wit and dark perspective/humor. One of literature’s great satirists, he used an idiosyncratic style—a flat, no frills voice—to emphasize the dramatic, fatalistic kinks of humanity in action. Quite apparently an admirer of Vonnegut, Andrew Smith penned Grasshopper Jungle in 2015 in very similar style.

Ostensibly YA though scalable to adults, Grasshopper Jungle tells of the adventures, and growing up that results, of Austin Szerba and his best friends Robbie and Shann over one summer in Ealing, Iowa. Typical teenagers, they smoke when their parents aren’t around, deal with hormones racing through their bodies, explore hobbies, attempt to comprehend emotions, and ultimately try to survive the giant praying mantis apocalypse. Yes, the giant praying mantis apocalypse…

The apocalypse beginning innocently enough, Austin and Robbie are beaten up at the local shopping mall one day by a group of boys from a rival high school. Their shoes and skateboards thrown onto the roof of a shop during the fight, the pair return in the evening to collect the lost property. Finding a lot more on the roof then they ever imagined, the two, along with Austin’s would-be girlfriend Shann, are pushed to explore the secret history of Ealing, particularly one of its founding father’s grand plans to create super soldiers during WWII. A virus unwittingly unleashed on the citizens of Ealing in the course of the trio’s investigation, it isn’t long before the small town becomes bug town.

Review of Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories are some the most low-quality material ever to find the light of day in publishing.  His imagination capturing something, however, the brawny Cimmerian helped spawn the sword & sorcery sub-genre, and the myriad of stories (low quality and otherwise) that have appeared since.  And they keep appearing.  One of the latest is Kai Ashante Wilson’s Sorcerer of the Wildeeps (2015).  A full indication that sword & sorcery has matured significantly in the century since Conan, Howard would roll in the grave if he knew of Wilson’ tale.

The Captain and his crew of mercenaries have been hired to guard a merchant caravan on its long journey to the city of Olorum.  Danger and peril awaiting at every step, their trek takes them through deserts and cities, and the mysterious jungles of the Wildeeps.  Indefatigable, the Captain runs at the head of the caravan by day, fights mock battles with his crew by evening, and stands guard by night.  Seemingly impenetrable in person, interacting with him is difficult, something the crew’s sorcerer, a foreigner named Demane, has trouble with.  But cooperation between the two is necessary if the caravan is to arrive at its destination.  Beset by bandits, enduring the scorn of the merchants, and dealing with the exigencies of life on the road, the Captain, Demane, and the rest of the crew must work together if they are to survive the trek and the Wildeeps.

Review of Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente

In 2015, editors George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois released the anthology Old Venus. Populated with shorts in tribute of Golden Age pulp on the green planet, the moments it achieves something more ambitious are few and very far between. Also released in 2015 was Catherynne M. Valente’s Radiance. Likewise a retro work set (largely) on Venus, Valente imbues her material with a sparkling depth and transience that far exceeds the standard Martin and Dozois were chasing, however. The title apt, it’s a subtler light than the neon of pulp.

Working with the art of filmmaking, the relationship between the fictional and the real, and Hollywood of old, Radiance is a novel that possesses every ounce of Valente’s literary awareness and fervor for language. Paul Di Filippo calls it “uncategorizable fantastika,” which is, in fact, a shortcut from Valente’s own more complex but accurate description: “a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery.” Dynamic to say the least, the milieu is never allowed to desiccate into simple retro-pulp homage, going further to tell a rich, multi-faceted tale of one woman’s life and legacy in Hollywood’s Golden Age—or what it would have been were the solar system alive with humanity.

Review of River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay is a writer who uses a lot of different locations, histories, and cultures for novel material. It was thus something of a surprise to learn that River of Stars (2013) was to likewise be set in ancient China, the same as his previous novel, Under Heaven. Though shifting the clock ahead a few dynasties, from the Tang to the Song, one wondered what new material he might bring to the table. It turns out, a degree of significance.

With the latter days of the Tang Dynasty as its inspiration, Under Heaven portrayed a mid-rank military commander given an unspeakably powerful gift, two-hundred and fifty Arabian war horses, and the influence he (and they) had on events in the kingdom as they played out. History was ever-present in the shadows of the prose, but by and large the characters and the drama of their stories were the heart driving the novel. River of Stars possesses a similar focus on character and drama (what Kay novel doesn’t?), but the weight of history emerges from the shadows into the light. The scales not swinging wildly to the other side, River of Stars nevertheless feels driven by tides of fate rather than character agency, resulting in a more encompassing hold on the setting and the people within.

Review of The Peripheral by William Gibson

Whether he wants it or not (probably not), William Gibson has come to represent a messianic, or at least idolatrous role in the science fiction community. Since the publishing of Neuromancer and the short fiction which lead up to it, many readers have looked to the author for the ‘next thing’ in genre. And, he’s delivered. His novels steadily honing in on more and more detailed scenes of the intersection of technology and society, his novels have been ground-breaking, or at sharply singular at the time published. Temporal matters likewise shifting linearly, each novel—or perhaps better stated, each trilogy—steadily moved its timeline closer and closer to the present, the most recent, The Blue Ant, essentially set in the here and now. With 2014’s The Peripheral, however, we see a different Gibson—at least in the context of how the genre evolved in and around Gibson’s ouevre.

Flynne Fisher thinks nothing of taking a shift for her brother Burton while he attends a rally. Running virtual security inside a video game, she gets easy money chasing camera drones away from a celebrity’s London home. Witness to a women’s murder at the hands of nanotech, Flynne thinks nothing of it, such happenings in video games not so strange. When real people start showing up at her door in the days that follow, however, asking about the murder, she starts to think twice. But it’s the assassination attempts that push her, and her ex-Marine brother, on the offensive.

Review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Sandman, American Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline, Stardust—these are some of contemporary fantasy’s most well-known works. Neil Gaiman’s voice on the page has charmed the multitudes, just as much as his charisma complements it in front of an audience. 2014’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a different sort of book from Gaiman, however.

Still fully recognizable as the author’s in the little quirks and details, The Ocean at the End of the Lane nevertheless possesses a certain gravitas that Gaiman’s previous works do not. Coraline is dark almost horror-ish, Anansi Boys and American Gods have their own shadows, etc.. But all are presented and resolved around more traditional lines of comedy theater. They feature a relatively light tone and a happy rather than ambiguous or tragic ending, no matter the drama that occurs. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is distinct from this.

Review of Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

Nick Harkaway’s debut novel The Gone-Away World was a dazzle. Lexically acrobatic putting it mildly, Harkaway tangoed and waltzed his away around direct exposition the entire length of the novel, all while telling the story of a young man and his sworn enemy caught in a post-apocalyptic, comic book scenario that was as much Kill Bill as Mad Max. Plot a touch thin, content occasionally indulgent, and the lexicon at times a bit too exuberant, Harkaway, however, maintained momentum with his undeniable narrative voice and the wild combination of motifs. It practically begged the question, what would (could?) Harkaway bring to the table with his sophomore effort, 2012’s Angelmaker? 

Everyday man Joe Spork, a watch repairman by trade, finds himself in possession of a most sought after book. His shop cum warehouse cum house where his grandfather was also a watch repairman starts getting clientele like he’s never seen before—some a little too flexible to be entirely human. But little beknownst to him, the trigger of wilder things is actually an innocuous request from a repeat customer, a kindly old woman who wants a clockwork toy soldier repaired. Spork performing the job with delight, events begin unfolding on the global scale. Bees, strange mechanical bees, swarm here and there, terrorism is cried from the rooftops, and Spork finds himself struggling to stay this side of mortality as the significance of the book and his grandfather’s work come into brighter light. What the book trailer politely calls an “inadvertent adventurer,” Joe ends up with the fate of the world on his shoulders. It’s a good thing he becomes something more than Ordinary Joe…

Review of Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Zoo City, Lauren Beukes’ second novel, and the novel that brought her name to greater awareness, is a story that succeeds in many areas as much as it takes a few questionable turns. Though effectively rendering a handful of characters from the crumbling near-future of Johannesburg, what was nicely executed at the detail level failed to fully cohere at the macro level, the ending something of a convergence of inorganic elements. For her fourth novel, Broken Monsters (2014), Beukes decided to return to another half-ruined city, Detroit, and present the lives of the people living in its wane. Would she be able to pull it together at the end?

Classic at the meta-horror level and bizarre at the local, Broken Monsters opens on a disturbing scene: the discovery of a boy’s body with deer legs attached where his own should be. Gabi Versado the detective assigned to the case, dealing with the situation that erupts in the wake of finding the corpse proves even more difficult as her daughter, Leyla, gets involved with internet activity she shouldn’t. Conspiracy theorists and amateur online journalists likewise getting in the way, Versado can find little peace to go about her investigation. Among them are John O’Hare, a wannabe writer recently moved to Detroit, who finds an angle in the murder mystery and runs with it on his youtube channel and TK, a former convict now a volunteer for the elderly treading the fine line of homelessness himself. And, there is the perspective of the killer himself. A man with thoughts not of his own living inside his head, art seems his/its only escape.

Review of The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley

Aliya Whiteley’s debut, The Beauty, was a fungally artful/artfully fungal take on gender and society, that for as safe as it played things thematically, presented ideas bearing repetition, all in wonderfully Weird fashion. Women’s roles and agency in society apparently a hot topic for Whiteley, for her next novel she forged ahead with the same idea, but in a drastically different aesthetic. Set in the English countryside in the early 20th century, The Arrival of Missives (2016, Unsung Stories) tells of the social tug-of-war played with one Shirley, and who the winner is.

The reader is introduced to seventeen year-old Shirley in the village schoolhouse. Only-child to a local farmer, she is smitten by her teacher, Mr. Tiller. Tiller a young man recently returned from the war after being wounded in battle, Shirley takes pity on his disturbed stolidity, wanting to soothe the obvious pain hovering just below the surface. Dreaming of being a teacher too, Shirley applies for a position at a local teacher’s school without her family’s knowledge, all the while pursuing after-hour meetings with Tiller. Witnessing a most disturbing scene standing outside his window one evening, Shirley becomes sucked into a dark world of veiled prophecies and mysterious letters. Tiller’s behavior getting more strange by the day, eventually things snap, and as life in the village is spun upside down, Shirley is forced to take account of herself. But can she? 

Review of The Further Adventures of Langdon St. Ives by James P. Blaylock

One of the first (and unwitting) works of steampunk, James P. Blaylock's Homunculus was an idiosyncratic story equals parts Dickens, Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and P.G. Wodehouse. Blaylock making the combination his own, he enhanced his version of gaslit London by publishing a handful of short stories and another novel, Lord Kelvin's Machine, in the surrounding years. There followed a long break, almost two decades in fact, before Blaylock returned to the British gentleman Langdon St. Ives and his rowdy, venturesome friends, however. But return he did, a fresh round of short novels and stories starting to appear in 2009. The first round collected in The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives in 2008 by Subterranean Press, in 2016 they return with a second omnibus, The Further Adventures of Langdon St. Ives.

Containing the novellas “The Ebb Tide,” “The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs,” and “The Adventure of the Ring of Stones,” as well as the previously unpublished short stories “The Here-and-Thereians” and “Earthbound Things,” The Further Adventures of Langdon St. Ives carries on the series in the same style as the first omnibus. Subterranean putting effort into the presentation, the lettering and format are beautiful, and the stories are complemented by dozens and dozens of illustrations by J.K. Potter. While I personally believe minimalist ink/pencil sketches with more emphasis on action than character would better capture the feel of the St. Ives stories, for sure there are others who will fully appreciate Potter's style of pop art and its moody darkness. It’s a rarity these days that any book contains illustrations, so at a minimum we should be grateful to have something to comment on. But on to the stories.

Review of Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature ed. by Jacob Weisman

It’s fair to say much of science fiction and fantasy feels slighted, or at least at a distance from the literary establishment—the we vs. them.  They don’t acknowledge our stories as literature...  They don’t consider our novels for their awards...  They don’t…   The truth is that the majority of speculative fiction cannot hold a candle to most literary fiction in terms of character development, couching of theme, subtlety of style, lexical precision, use of narrative structure, metaphor, and a number of other aspects of quality writing.  Compare a Hugo Award nominee list to a Pulitzer Prize list along these lines for a given year and the gap quickly ecomes apparent.  Making the gap more apparent is editor Jacob Weisman’s 2016 anthology Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature (Tachyon). 

The title a tongue-in-cheek reference to the authors’ perceived locations on the literary map relative to speculative fiction, Invaders features a spectrum of writers known predominantly for their literary work yet deploying tropes and devices most typically associated with genre.  Another way of putting this is: their names do not readily flow off the tip of most science fiction readers’ tongues.  Jonathan Lethem, Molly Gloss, or W.P. Kinsella may ring a distant bell, but by and large the majority of authors, authors such as Eric Puchner, Steven Millhauser, and Jami Attenberg, do not regularly appear in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, or on the covers of novels classified sf&f in most bookstores and online shops.  Known, however, in the literary market, they bring to Invaders a palette of skills and perspectives that readers do see being deployed on the fringes of sf&f, but rarely in its mainstream, and for this should be of interest.