Review of Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

Despite being on multiple bestseller lists, despite winning the Pulitzer prize, and despite being a writer of “literary training, generation, and pretensions”, Michael Chabon is a genre proponent.  (Read the afterword to his 2008 The Yiddish Policemen’s Union for more info.)  Literary fiction aficionados lauding Chabon’s talent—for talent it is, The New York Times Magazine, one of the bastions of American literature which lets speculative fiction play on its margins, contracted the author to write a serialized genre story.  Published over the course of five months, and collected in a single volume in 2007, Gentlemen of the Road is the result.

In the time honored tradition of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Elric and Moonglum, and all other fantasy adventure pairs, Chabon adds Zelikman and Amram to the mix.  The former a scarecrow-thin physician of Frankish descent who wields a blood-letting lance as a sword and the latter a strong-as-an-ox African who carries a Viking axe into battle, the pair get themselves into one scrum after another as they cheat, cure, assist, and fight their way across the lands of Kazaria (what is today the Caucus region) in one adventure after another.

Review of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

There may be no greater writer of speculative fiction shorts than Ray Bradbury, and The Illustrated Man is one of his most celebrated collections.  Tied loosely around a framing device more dependent on Something Wicked This Way Comes than anything inherent to the collection, the stories plumb the depth of the human heart and emerge bittersweet.

The collection opens with the narrator traveling the Wisconsin countryside by foot.  His fire a beacon in the night, a man who’s just been kicked out of the circus comes to join him.  Covered in tattoos, the man asks for the narrator’s hospitality before settling into the story of how he came to be unemployed.  A deal with a witch gone wrong, the tattoos he asked for are not what he received: most people who see the metamorphing images end up dead shortly thereafter.  The circumstances dictate his terms of employment are most often of the short variety.  Curling up beside the fire, the man eventually goes to sleep, leaving the narrator to watch the illustrations come to life on his tattooed flesh.

Review of Stone by Adam Roberts

It’s been several days since finishing Adam Robert’s 2002 Stone, and I’m still unsure what to think of the novel.  On one hand, it could be a semi-jumble featuring a few strong ideas wedged inexpertly into a single story.  On the other, it could be something more profound: the strong ideas may prove to be something more in combination, the linkages yet to be made in my brain.  Regardless, the fact I’m still mulling it over means there is something to the book.

Stone is the story Ae, a convicted murderer living in a jailstar.  An epistolary novel, Ae writes journal entries to a stone while living in a prison inside a sun.  ‘Executed’ in the first few pages, he is rendered a mere mortal when all nanotech is removed from his body.  In the universe at large, Ae has the unique distinction of being the only criminal.  Nanotech evolving humanity into a utopian state, Police do not even exist.  People travel from one exotic world to the next, living a dream without fear of disease, ageing, death, and even crime.  It is thus that a special prison has been built to isolate Ae from the rest of society.  Watched over by two jailers, a strange voice comes into Ae’s head one day offering him a deal: if he is helped to escape, will he agree to kill all 60 billion people on a planet to be named later?  Agreeing to the conditions, his jailbreak is made and the story begins.

Review of Coyote by Allen Steele

Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein were once the ‘big three’ of science fiction.  Vanguard of the Silver Age, their stories were amongst the most widely read science fiction of the time, and remain popular to this day.  Influential in obvious and unobvious ways, their optimistic vision of technology and mankind in space have carried on.  Written wholly in the spirit of these three men, Allen Steele’s Coyote series is an acknowledged confirmation of the tradition that tells its own tale of planetary adventure.   

The first books in the series is called simply Coyote (2002).  Published (interestingly) in Asimov’s over the course of a year, the book is broken into novella/novelette sized chunks.  Each moving linearly into the next, the stories describe the people of the USS Alabama on their trip from Earth to 47 Ursae Majoris, a moon dubbed Coyote revolving around one of its large planets, and the beginning of their settlement.  Coyote full of tricks, the story is part drama, adventure, and colonization effort, buoyed by Steele’s clean, practiced prose.

Review of Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

Amongst myself and those I have met in my life in the West, little to none ever received any Asian history lessons.  China a country which is only recently gaining attention, it is largely due to commercial and political interests that knowledge has begun to expand.  Remaining lost to most Westerners is the rich history and culture which have brought China to the place it is today.  Vying with with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures for the earliest recorded word, its literature is also amongst the oldest in the world.  Included in this is a wealth of storytelling—including works of fantasy.  This is not to say the West has been ignorant of the Middle Kingdom, only that such knowledge is passed on by a limited group.  Scholarly research and esoteria the norm in which knowledge of China is propagated, the fictional side has received little treatment.  But that is not what makes Barry Hughart’s 1984 novel Bridge of Birds so remarkable.

Fully integrating Chinese legend into ‘reality’, the sub-title of the novel spells it out: A Novel of an Ancient China that Never Was.  Hughart one of those few who took the time to seek out knowledge on his own, the book exudes both the joy of storytelling, knowledge of the Middle Kingdom, and the desire to say: ‘Hey, look at this treasure trove of fictional delight just waiting on the other side of the Pacific!’.  Never overt, Hughart assimilates street corner myths, novels from the Chinese canon, Chinese culture, as well as bits of Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist philosophy into his first novel, Bridge of Birds.  Having lived in China for four years, I can attest to the veracity of the spirit and wisdom of the land placed on the page.  Part mystery, part adventure, part ‘historical’ fantasy, and all intelligent fun, Bridge of Birds is one of the most unique works of fantasy ever written—in the West.

And, we're back online...

And... Speculiction is back. Argentina and Chile were great, but, like always, I wish we had more time to explore.  One life is not enough to see this world!!

I will go through our photos this week and choose some to post here.  Stay tuned.  (They are beautiful countries.)

Speculiction on a one month hiatus...

Speculiction is on a one month hiatus.  Its estimable proprietor is traveling to the nether regions of the world, otherwise known as Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, for four weeks of hiking, trekking, and general time in nature, where, hopefully he might meet the guy on the left and have a chat about the weather, wine, women, or whatever crosses his mind...

It goes without saying that during this time there will be no updates to the blog and that thimbleful of comments I receive will probably take a few days or weeks to be moderated.  Your opinion is important, just please have patience to see it appear. In the meantime, I strongly suggest you go out and read Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, the book reviewed below, for it's one of the greatest books ever written. You can, of course, find many other good books reviewed on this site to tide you over until I return.

Review of Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

As an eighth grader, I was required to watch the short film “Powers of Ten” (here).  Though the opening scenes and graphics are beginning to show their age, there is no replacing the sense of wonder its nine minutes leave the viewer with.  Continually expanding, and expanding, and expanding from Earth, to solar system, to galaxy, to universe, and beyond, it is a great parallel to Olaf Stapledon’s 1937 Star Maker.  The novel taking the reader on a philosophical and spiritual trip of similar perspective, infinity seems the only limit. 

Future history at its most representational, plot is scant in Star Maker.  The “story” of a man who disembodies himself, the narrative takes his mind, and the reader, on a journey from the English heath to the depths of time and space.  Starting in minutes and seconds and gradually shifting into aeons and aeons of time and thought, the cycles of existence and humanity’s place within that movement are what is at stake as the nameless protagonist attempts to come to existential terms with the breadth and meaning of the galaxy, and whether, after all, there is an omnipotent Star Maker.

Review of The Best of Analog ed. by Ben Bova

All-stars selected from a larger squad of all-stars, it is perhaps inevitable that The Best of Analog is filled with high-caliber stories.  Alfred Bester, Roger Zelazny, George R.R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Gene Wolfe, and on and on roll the big names.  Published in 1978, the book contains three novellas, ten shorts, and one poem—pieces that have by and large stood the test of time on both feet.  Several of the stories winning awards, it is indeed a collection of bright, interesting sci-fi shorts.  The following is a brief breakdown of those selected by editor Ben Bova:

Opening the collection is the intriguing “Perseophone and Hades” by Scott W. Schumack.  A classic premise—last man and woman on Earth—is followed by an unpredictable story.  Detailing not only how they came to be in such a situation, but what became of it—if ever the man can catch the woman, that is.

Though a very masculine story, David Lewis’s novella Common Denominator does have the softer side of being human at heart.  The story of the elite fighter pilot Smith, his irascible wingman Richards, and their fight against the alien Starii, it is a classic space fight with a deeper purpose.

Review of Titan by Ben Bova

What is vanilla?  It is a flavor of ice cream, a fall back when all else fails, and a dependable solution when nothing else is available.  Ben Bova’s 2006 Titan is vanilla.  Possessing not a scoop of bubble gum or dollop of tiramisu, the 2006 novel is Silver Age science fiction published in the 21 st century.  Its characters, plotting, and MO stuck in a time warp, this novel, part of Bova’s Grand Tour series, defines the meaning of ‘average genre production’.

I normally reserve this paragraph for plot synopsis.  However, given that back cover copy kills two birds with one stone, I’m going to forego routine and quote it.  Titan’s teaser is as follows: 

Titan Alpha has landed: the most complex man-made object to reach Saturn’s largest moon.  The ten thousand men and women of Habitat Goddard are once more at the frontier of space.

From their huge, artificial paradise hanging in orbit above Saturn, some of them dream of landing on Titan’s surface.  Others will do anything to prevent such a landing.  And yet others have darker, secret plans.

But almost immediately, Titan Alpha goes silent.  And minor, inexplicable faults start to affect Goddard. Is there a basic design flaw that could threaten the lives of everyone on board?  Or has one of the many malcontents exiled to space decided to sabotage the probe or even the whole expedition?