The back cover of this has a quote from Kingsley Amis: 'the most consistently able writer science fiction [..] has yet produced.'
Which feels like BritThe back cover of this has a quote from Kingsley Amis: 'the most consistently able writer science fiction [..] has yet produced.'
Which feels like British damning with faint praise. Yes, he is consistent; nothing more? The walls surrounding me are consistent, too. Who chose this quote for print?!?
I might not remember many of these stories after tomorrow. The most interesting ones focus or satirize PR or consumerism: for example, The Midas Plague, a world where the poor have to constantly consume within their ratio or the all-producing robots will overproduce. Or The Tunnel Under The World, where simulations of people repeatedly wake up on the same day, only to be experimented on by advertising people trying out different campaigns. Or The Children Of Night, where a PR man has to try and make extraterrestrial war crimes palatable to the electorate.
Of the rest, I mostly remember The Day The Icicle Works Closed, which would have worked far better with a hardboiled detective as the protagonist: still, a good idea.
But it's all so 'consistently able!' There are no big surprises, no variations in style here....more
Back when I was growing up in Germany, I once found a huge box in my parents' attic. That box contained a selection of Perry Rhodan paperbacks (mostlyBack when I was growing up in Germany, I once found a huge box in my parents' attic. That box contained a selection of Perry Rhodan paperbacks (mostly novellas) my father bought when he was younger; I devoured that box, and it sparked so much.
The Rhodan books and magazines started in 1961, when my father was 10 years old. He used to say he'd get 50 Pfennig as pocket money which was enough for an ice cream and the new Perry Rhodan magazine (you have to pronounce it like a German). Rhodan is still the longest-running and most succesful SF series: the one billionth Rhodan sale happened in 1986, the year I was born. It's still going on, once rebooted in 2011. The magazines have not survived, but we still have that box of novellas somewhere.
Finding this paperback in Perth triggered all that nostalgia: an English translation of two novellas (Atom-Alarm, Das Mutanten-Korps) into one novel. These novellas are all connected into one overarching story, but even if you don't have #1 and #2 like me you can still guess what's going on. Both came out originally in 1961, so there's a good chance my father bought the German originals.
But there's only so much nostalgia I can stomach, I got somewhere into the middle of 'Das Mutanten-Korps', the second chapter, when I just had to give up. Everything that impressed me as a child annoys me now. Rhodan is an impossible figure, succeeding at every task, dominating every opponent with an arrogant surety. That kind of superhuman has fallen out of favor: think Captain Kirk with super-mind-powers, surrounded by people with convenient superpowers. Nothing is ever truly at stake, in fact, the novel doesn't even try to pretend there's anything at stake. Rhodan wants to unite the world by identifying external enemies and showing them to the world: like Watchmen's Ozymandias, but without the ironic break.
Rhodan will always win and we know that; but we don't really know what's going on inside him. At some point he confesses his love to his female opponent, just completely out of the blue. There's no motivation for that one.
It's not even fun to read! Things just happen, and Rhodan wins....more
You know this is fantasy because it features a poet being famous.
Rydra Wong, galaxy-wide famous poet but also starship captain, is in the middle of anYou know this is fantasy because it features a poet being famous.
Rydra Wong, galaxy-wide famous poet but also starship captain, is in the middle of an intergalactic war between the Alliance and the Invaders. She is sent to investigate a string of sabotage attacks that are always accompanied by an unusual code on local radio: Babel-17.
Spoilers: It's not a code, it's a language. Learning that language lets Wong interpret reality differently, time slows down. If you have seen Arrival (or read the original short story by Ted Chiang in Stories of Your Life and Others) you'll know the deal! Except that Babel-17 is so much more, it's an artificially designed language for war. It's much more than a time dilution apparatus, some aspects are designed so that the learner becomes a saboteur.
This is very much New Wave stuff: crew members who can only work well if they're in a polycule, kinda-ghosts as staff or the space ships won't work, post-humanist body modification as a standard procedure, genderbending. 2024 SF has all these tropes, rediscovered. Sometimes the language is beautiful ('His nails were nubgnawed on fingers like knotted lengths of white rope'), sometimes the language is purely functional, dialogue alone.
The universe is described to a The Quantum Thief-level, i.e., not much. It's a short book, after all, dense with ideas, but not uniformly dense. That's what makes it a weird, inconsistent read.
P.S.: Why does the big guy on my 1987 Gollancz edition have a dragon coming from his armpit?...more
A spaceship is sent off to a faraway planet while civilization on our planet slowly crumbles. The crew ostensibly was sent to check out a new planet bA spaceship is sent off to a faraway planet while civilization on our planet slowly crumbles. The crew ostensibly was sent to check out a new planet but as it turns out, no such planet exists: A scientist had the idea of giving smart people the time to think, and who hasn't dreamt of that?, and of course our small group of small people soon turns into superhumans, first solving Goldbach's Conjecture, then editing their own genes, then transcending this reality.
This could have been a short story. I see now that it used to be a novelette that was turned into a full novel; it just feels diluted and too long for the story it's telling. The basic idea is cool but it's hard to develop a story where the characters are smarter than the author, as the author quickly has to fall back to tricks (mysticism! unexplainable code!) that don't really do anything.
Didn't really do anything for me, finished it due to pointless obligations to myself....more
We have our protagonist who survived the siege of Leningrad and was then recruited to become a kind of sleeper agent in the A product of the Cold War.
We have our protagonist who survived the siege of Leningrad and was then recruited to become a kind of sleeper agent in the US for the Soviets. He is linguistically talented, so he becomes a professor. With his wife (who thinks he's a regular American) he experiments with hypnosis, and accidentally invents a device that lets him control people using his voice only. He starts to abuse his machine slightly, so the CIA finds out about him; what follows is a cat-and-mouse game that ends with (view spoiler)[nuclear disarmament wait what(hide spoiler)].
It's a straightforward caper: the SF is light, there's a bit of criticism of communism, a bit of warmongering, but it's no The Forever War....more
The publishing event of 1987!!! it says on my edition's cover.
A novel in documents; a government official in a far future space empire suspects that tThe publishing event of 1987!!! it says on my edition's cover.
A novel in documents; a government official in a far future space empire suspects that there are 'Wanderers' among the population, far-future beings that use their secret powers to influence the course of events. Unusual political movements appear, people suffer from unusual phobias, and in at least one remote village, strange aliens appear for one afternoon, causing very different reactions in the local population. Are the Wanderers influencing mankind, or are these just random events? Are the Wanderers 'testing' people to see who is worthy of joining them, or is it just hard to keep track of people when you have thousands of planets?
As this is a novel in Communist government documents it's dry to the point of sleep. Much of the dialogue is lamentation. The universe itself is only hinted at; it seems to be a Communist interstellar empire, aliens seem to exist (or are they just weird humans?), is it a tyranny, or a utopia? Hard to tell. The latter quarter of the novel picks up pace significantly, so I'd encourage you to keep at it! The reveal is worth it.
P.S.: I just learned there's a new 2023 translation under a different title: The Waves Extinguish the Wind. Probably less dry, the new re-translations of Stanislaw Lem's books are far better reading, too. There's also new editions of Hard to Be a God, The Inhabited Island, and The Beetle in the Anthill!! Exciting times. (If you can, see the movie version of Hard To Be a God - a mad movie in the best sense)....more
Lewis Carroll loved mathematics, which is evident in the first two of his Alice novels. But what if Lewis Carroll knew about programming, computers, aLewis Carroll loved mathematics, which is evident in the first two of his Alice novels. But what if Lewis Carroll knew about programming, computers, and robots? He might have written Automated Alice. Alice travels to the future (present-day alternative-universe Manchester), where people build computers from termites (remember the computer in The Three-Body Problem?), where people and animals have been merged, where artists build robots, and the snake-people rule. Alice has to find her way back, assisted by a robot-version of herself, animal-people, while hunting for elusive puzzle-pieces and her escaped parrot.
If you're looking for another Vurt you'll be disappointed; there are some overlapping images (feathers!!!), but it's a threquel for Alice with computing influences, not a mindbending Cyberpunk-novel. Noon is amazing at imitating Carroll's style; in 2023 you'd think this was written by ChatGPT (what a science-fiction sentence to write!). But it's not just Carroll, Noon himself has a self-insert, things happen that Carroll couldn't have imagined, but yeah, it's not cyberpunk: it's bona-fide Alice....more
A very lucky find at one of Perth's best bookstores: Bella Books! The kind of bookshop where you're greeted with 'if you're looking for anything speciA very lucky find at one of Perth's best bookstores: Bella Books! The kind of bookshop where you're greeted with 'if you're looking for anything specific, I can only point you into a general direction' and then you get to wade through piles of books. I got this one from a shelf of SF books from the 60s/70s - all unlabeled, 3 books for $15. I got an issue of Analog SF from 1968 chucked in for free.
I'm quickly becoming a huge Lafferty fanboy. SF with unique ideas, unique view-points, and Pynchon-style goofing around. In Past Master we have the planet Astrobe, settled by humanity, generally seen as the 'main' culture. It's a post-scarcity society where nobody has to work, yet there's a cancer growing in its heart: the two settlements the Barrio and Cathead, where people leave their post-scarcity to work horrible jobs and die gruesome deaths. Why do they choose this path? The leaders don't get it, so they send for the past and pull out the guy who should know utopias: Thomas More, author of Utopia (1516), he should know what to do.
The leaders of Astrobe pull in Thomas and install him as the king of Astrobe, the Past Master, here to fix their ailments. He is guarded and helped by a wonderfully ridiculous cast- Paul, who lost his last name for his crimes ('a record of irregular doings') and is always hounded, so he should know how to get out of a tight spot - Evita/Lilith, impossibly young and impossibly old, quite possibly the actual Lilith from mythology (her undying brother here is Adam) - 'Rimrock the ansel' (great little old German joke, 'with divine protection'), a deep-sea creature that has gained consciousness during his ascent to the surface and is telepathic; the description of Rimrock's ascent alone makes the book worthwhile:
"To your viewpoint, we came up out of the ocean onto the land. But it is yourselves who do not appreciate the magnitude of it. You did it so long ago that you have forgotten it, both in your minds and your underminds. But how can you forget that you live on the top of the sky? How can you forget that every moment you walk you are walking on a precarious rug higher than a five thousand story high building? Do you know that the highest-flying bird of the air cannot rise one tenth as high as we stand now?"
Of course it's funny too, but not as random-fun as the other Lafferty books I've read; it's a much more straightforward story, less Pynchon, but more ironic.
[Spoken by Emperor Charles of Goslar of a lineage where the Emperor is killed every few days to months] "Not for thirty reigns have there been so many grand people at court at one time, and not for thirty reigns has there been so handsome an Emperor at the head of the court." "How long a time has the thirty reigns been?" Thomas asked him. "It has been what we call a rapid year," the Emperor said, "perhaps the most rapid ever."
There's a very typical Lafferty joke in the choice of "Goslar", Goslar in Germany having been the seat of Holy Roman Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages.
(spoilers below)
To understand what this book is about is to first know that Lafferty was a lifelong Catholic. Much of the book's symbolism comes from Catholicism and associated mythologies - for starters, in the 'second' layer of leaders of Astrobe, people working 'from the other side', who may or may not the 'true' leaders, with our Thomas having worked with a group of demiurges -there's the final Jesus-like sacrifice and execution of Thomas so that the world can be reborn from mustard seed (It's like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, though it is less than all the seeds that are on the earth, yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the sky can lodge under its shadow. [Mark 4:30–32]) - Hell is real, the Devil is real and has to be killed once a day in his various incarnations (or are they just big fish?) - there's Lilith, there's Adam, and finally, there's the possibility of sin as a central plotpoint.
Astrobe has been made so 'perfect', there's no possibility of sin - sins have been abandoned, 'there is nothing to sin against', the gravest transgressions have been made equal. It is heavily implied that the sickness at the heart of Astrobe is a lack of the Beyond with a lack of choice - not just a belief in a Christian God, but any kind of Beyond. (view spoiler)[In fact, Thomas is executed (or is he?) when he refuses to sign the final law outlawing any Beyond! (hide spoiler)]. God made people in his image, yet God has given people the choice to sin if they want to. Astrobe has taken that choice away.
It's wonderful how much the book hides how broken Astrobe is from you - (view spoiler)[It is revealed that ever since Thomas loved this world, his mind has been under control by those in the shadows. For short moments he realises how terrible this world actually is. The narrator is under a similar spell; it takes about 150 pages before the reader can guess how bad this society is, when it is revealed that by law everybody has to share their households via camera, their thoughts via machinery, and people are not allowed to choose their unhappiness (a point a single 'Crank' makes); at which point the choice of escaping to a terrible life in Cathead becomes obvious to 'us' 2023 people. (hide spoiler)]
Anyway, this is great stuff. It's not heady, but it's also not as fun as other Lafferty books. You can read it in a day, go for it!
P.S.: Lots of tiny language jokes here - Thomas More at one point calls the robots 'tin scurrae', scurrae being Latin for jesters/clowns. 'You tin clowns!' I am sure that the name of Astrobe is also a joke, but I can't understand it. An 'Astrolabe' is a handheld model of the universe from ancient times, 'astrolabos', 'star-taker'. I don't understand the meaning once the 'la-' is removed. I am sure there is a joke in it. Perhaps from βάλλω, 'to throw', 'to fall' - so 'star-thrower'?...more
Random find at the used book store (Bella Books, Osborne Park, Perth, highly recommended!! A 'classic' used-book store with stacks of books on the floRandom find at the used book store (Bella Books, Osborne Park, Perth, highly recommended!! A 'classic' used-book store with stacks of books on the floor) [1].
I haven't really read anything by E.E. Doc Smith so I can't tell how similar this is to his earlier works; Wikipedia (not the book itself!!!) tells me this wasn't actually written by Smith, but by others using Smith's name and characters after Smith's death.
We have Tedric of the human empire, a decadent and dying thing, who was sent to 'this' galaxy from a different one by The Scientists (not a band!) to influence events. Tedric joins up with space pirates led by a fun robot, they kidnap the last emperor's blind and quasi-telepathic daughter, she pulls off a Patti Hearst, and most of the plot concerns itself with the Space Pirates' efforts to topple the new usurper-emperor (they cease being pirates and instead become rebels).
It's space opera on a not-so-large scale, clearly written as part of a series as there are constant allusion to the other novels in the series; especially the larger plot around The Scientists and their counterparts is set up for later. Lots of mary-suing, fun space-explosions, some battles, but marred by having most outcomes pretty much pre-ordained. It's all lopsided, but still quick fun.
[1] bought for $4.50, fun example of inflation: it was sold new for $2.75 in 1979....more
It's been years since I read Neuromancer, I randomly found this follow-up at a yard-sale so here we are!
I can understand the comparison to Raymond ChaIt's been years since I read Neuromancer, I randomly found this follow-up at a yard-sale so here we are!
I can understand the comparison to Raymond Chandler on the frontpage: it's much more about the vibe of the story rather than the story itself, anti-heroes get punched in the face, everything is dirty and corrupt. Money rules everything and there's nothing you can do about it. Good reading, my one problem is that it could've easily been 100 pages longer; by the time you have only 50 pages left you wonder how Gibson will tie it all up, so it all feels a bit rushed at the end. BUT still, super-fun to read.
What's weird: over the Christmas break I watched Cyberpunk 2077 which is set squarely in Gibson's Cyberpunk world - neon, Japanese mega-corps, body augs. Count Zero is from 1986, the year I was born - here we are in 2023 and cyberpunk as a genre hasn't moved anywhere at all. I wonder what that says about us....more
Short stories from one of the grandmasters, always concerned not so much with the impact of what technology does to humans, but how human relations anShort stories from one of the grandmasters, always concerned not so much with the impact of what technology does to humans, but how human relations and networks impact these technologies themselves. You can see that best in the two last short stories concerning the same fictitious tech, a faster-than-light/wormhole-like tech that reacts strongly to the ship's crew's relationships, jumbling their shared reality if it is not strong enough. Definitely to re-read....more
Mr Soames is in his 30s, but he's never spoken a word or moved a muscle, having been born comatose. A new operation awakens him, but now his team of dMr Soames is in his 30s, but he's never spoken a word or moved a muscle, having been born comatose. A new operation awakens him, but now his team of doctors needs to decide how to teach him. He's a fully grown man with a fully developed body, so there are unique challenges.
A rare DNF for me, didn't make it past the middle. I still haven't even 'met' Mr Soames, it's all just dialogues by interchangeable doctors. 'How should we raise him?'. 'Maybe like this!', 'Maybe like that!'. 'Should we hit him if he misbehaves?'. 'Should we not hit him if he misbehaves?'. It slowly plods along like that, hypothetical discussion after hypothetical discussion by interchangeable doctors (I think one guy drinks? that's about all I remember about them).
I guess this is a product of its time, the main question of these repetitive dialogues circle around 'should we use violence in education?', 'should education involve play?'. It's been 50 years, we have found answers to these questions by now. There are no hypotheticals necessary. Which is curious, isn't it? it's not often you find an SF book around a 'big' question that we have resolved. Usually, SF's questions are timeless....more
Pretty fun cyberpunk, reminded me a lot of Jack Womack's Elvissey - the books where large companies use ultraviolence in a very nonchalant, 'just gettPretty fun cyberpunk, reminded me a lot of Jack Womack's Elvissey - the books where large companies use ultraviolence in a very nonchalant, 'just getting the milk' way.
Chris Faulkner starts a new job with one of the biggest companies in Conflict Investment, who invest in poorer countries' military coups and leaders to get them to buy their weapons. Like in Womack's Elvissey, workers of these companies fight and kill each other for these contracts, for some reason in the form of deathraces. About one half of the book is Chris being good at racing, but also somehow having a heart of gold, then Morgan realised that you can't just have these races forever for a whole book, so the second half pivots a bit and puts our hero into these warzones his company invests into. It's a pretty fun read, a critic of Thatcher-style neoliberal capitalism about 15 years too late....more
A collection of fun science-fiction short stories and one novella, kind of at the border of 'modern' SF and golden-age SF. Fun adventures, a tiny bit A collection of fun science-fiction short stories and one novella, kind of at the border of 'modern' SF and golden-age SF. Fun adventures, a tiny bit of social critique, but heavy emphasis on the adventure part.
The best part, and what makes this book so good, is that every story has a brutally honest afterword from Tenn. They're the opposite of your typical artist's nonsense of inspiration and muses. 'Some author cancelled last-minute, so the SF magazine needed a 2,000 word story, they asked me to write this in a night, which I did since I didn't have that month's rent yet, and now you read it too!'
These afterwords don't hold back when it comes editors 'messing' with his work, or agents' perception of his work:
[....] she has told me she was going to sell me to Harper's and The New Yorker and points north; she sent it back to me by return post. "Don't just tear this up, Phil," she said, "but keep it near you and look at it from time to time, and ask yourself, 'How could I, a gifted professional writer, come to write such a piece of shit?'"
It's worth it for these afterwords alone. Now I need to find Volume 1! ...more
“How rapidly do you read?” Miss Hanks asked a young girl. “One hundred and twenty words a minute,” the
Why had no-one ever told me this genius exists?
“How rapidly do you read?” Miss Hanks asked a young girl. “One hundred and twenty words a minute,” the girl said. “On Earth some of the girl students your age have learned to read at the rate of five hundred words a minute,” Miss Hanks said proudly. “When I began disciplined reading, I was reading at the rate of four thousands words a minute,” the girl said. “They had quite a time correcting me of it. I had to take remedial reading, and my parents were ashamed of me. Now I’ve learned to read almost slow enough.” “I don’t understand,” said Miss Hanks.
Playful SF stories that feel like they're written more for the author's bemusement than for any audience - not much is explained, the reader is dropped into the world, "there was just a little bit wrong about things", and then you get some fun, sometimes a kick in the stomach, and then the story is over. This would make for a great Christmas gift last week.
“And your own myths, old fellow, have they preceded you, or have you really been here before?” Willy McGilly asked. “I see that you have a twisty tongue that turns out some really winding myths.” “Thank you, for that is ever my intent. Myths are not merely things that were made in times past: myths are among the things that maintain the present in being. I wish most strongly that the present should be maintained: I often live in it.”
A locked-room-murder-mystery in space that ignores many of the locked-room-mystery conventions, giving readers no clues, with the murderer being a surA locked-room-murder-mystery in space that ignores many of the locked-room-mystery conventions, giving readers no clues, with the murderer being a surprise reveal and introduction - then it turns into Event Horizon. ...more
There is entwined seven-tentacled lightning. It is fire-masses, it is sheets, it is arms. It is seven-colored writhing in the darkness, electric and a
There is entwined seven-tentacled lightning. It is fire-masses, it is sheets, it is arms. It is seven-colored writhing in the darkness, electric and alive. It pulsates, it sends, it sparkles, it blinds! It explodes! It is seven murderous thunder-snakes striking in seven directions along the ground! Blindingly fast! Under your feet! Now! At you!
SO MUCH fun. I have never heard of R. A. Lafferty before, only recently did I stumble over this Wired feature on him, calling him the best SF writer you've never heard of.
So I grabbed the first book I could find, which turned out to be Fourth Mansions. It's kind of a mix of the Illuminati! trilogy, hard-boiled detective fiction, a bit of Dan Brown, a bit of SPEED, EXCLAMATION POINTS, a bit of Philip K Dick's mind-worlds, a lot of Pynchon's goofy fun, oh SO MUCH goofy fun.
Well, why didn't they recapture Leo Joe then, since he was right outside the Bug? Since they were looking for him everywhere? They didn't capture him because they didn't recognize him. He did not look anything like what he had looked like inside the Bug. He was a different man entirely in appearance; he had been several such different men; only Freddy Foley could recognize him. And Leo Joe had turned into an ice cream man to pass a message to Fred Foley. Why had he not given him the message when he was inside, when they could talk freely? He had not because that would not have been grotesque enough for him. Freddy did not know what the words or details of the message would be, and yet he already knew their meaning. It was “Goof gloriously, Freddy. Goof gloriously again. It is required that one man should goof gloriously for the people.”
Freddy Foley (the names here are all straight Pynchon or maybe Marvel-comics) is a reporter working on a story about a possibly eternally-living man, purely because he saw a picture from the middle ages of a guy who looks a lot like a currently-living rich man. At the same time, seven people form a 'weave', a strange psychic connection, and they want to use that weave to evolve into better humans, or Gods, past all human morals, Harvesters (WIRED notes that Lafferty was a strict Christian, and it shows everywhere). That weave has accidentally 'touched' Freddy Foley, but it has also touched an up-and-coming paramilitary fascist in Mexico (Miguel Fuentes), and from now on they're all connected, knowing across the weave, conversing across the weave. Foley does not care for he's dumb, blind, blundering, and silly, and he's too thick-headed to leave his original story.
At the same time, other forces, secret societies or maybe just imagined poltergeist-societies or maybe demi-gods, are opposing the weave of the seven, the Patricks (Latin joke from Lafferty - members of the patrician class, not Spongebob's friend), who are probably not human, but perhaps rule reality. Foley bumps into these Patricks everywhere, but also a whole bunch of others, falcons, plappergeists lying to themselves, possessions, psychic manifestations, alternative realities, mind-trips, mind-weaves. Nothing is straightforward here, so readers of Pynchon (oh my god so many shaggy-dog stories) or PKD should be right at home. Just don't expect a straightforward story, or a nice resolution, or a clean-cut reality here, there's no time for that, consciousness needs to be channeled.
"All right. What are the badgers? Tell me about them. You are one."
"Foley, it would take many hours to tell about us. We entrench in the earth and we retain an old empire. I don't joke. Ours is the real; but even if I should tell you all about it you would regard us as a network of lodges or curious societies or comical conventions. Can you not see that it is your apparent government and world that is these things? Foley, there are alternate worlds going on all the time, depending only on the vision. There is a double reflection. I do not accept yours, and you sure would not accept mine. But I say that mine is alive and that its more favorable time-track may still be selected. X-ray eyes, Foley, ghost eyes, fish eyes, shadow flesh, and white golden air. Halo. Aura. Corona."
"As your doctor said, Bagley, one of us is crazy."
Anyway, now I need to read all Lafferty books. Always remember, "It is required that one man should goof gloriously for the people"....more
Bought on the basis of the rad cover for one dollaridoo.
Three novellas - Born with the Dead, Thomas the Proclaimer, Going.
Born with the Dead is the beBought on the basis of the rad cover for one dollaridoo.
Three novellas - Born with the Dead, Thomas the Proclaimer, Going.
Born with the Dead is the best one: rebirth after death is possible thanks to a bunch of weird guys, but the reborn can't really relate to their living relatives, instead spend their days traveling across the world in areas that normal living people are not allowed to enter. The narrator is obsessed with his dead/rekindled wife and follows her around the world, always a few steps behind her. I guess you could read this as an allegory to a messy breakup: the one who is left always aches after the one who left and can't move on, until one day it makes 'click' and the one who's left is ready to finally move on themselves.
The other two novellas I mostly forgot already - Going is about an artist at the end of their life living at an assisted suicide facility looking back at his life, too much navel-gazing for me. Thomas the Proclaimer is about a end-of-the-world prophet who correctly predicts a cataclysmic event, is then pushed to become a huge cult-leader but stops having any insights on what's going on as society deteriorates around him. Too much edgy atheism for me....more
This is certainly not an easy read - it's set in the same universe as Borne, which was about a Company in a City which keeps on rel2020 starts strong!
This is certainly not an easy read - it's set in the same universe as Borne, which was about a Company in a City which keeps on releasing strange biotech projects into a post-apocalyptic world (potentially, the biotech caused the collapse). In Borne, humans have to scavenge, and Mord, a huge flying bear, oversees everything.
Dead Astronauts is set in the same world but it's a much more challenging read. It's first about three humans, maybe humans, named Chen, Grayson, Moss, who try to fight the Company - the biotech has given them somehow given the chance to fight the Company across different realities, choosing the timeline or reality where the fight is possible, meeting or not meeting their equivalents in those timelines, always finding Charlie X who may or may not have started it all. There's a extremely powerful duck who sometimes helps and sometimes fights them. There's a huge blue fox who appears only once and who may be the real reason the whole reality-switching thing works.
The second half goes somewhere else, into the history of the Company, and then circles back to the astronauts. There's a huge fish-like thing called Behemoth (and many other names) who may have merged with Moss (or has a part of her within him), who interacts with an unnamed You, someone who found the diary of Charlie X, the one who worked for the Company and set off all the events that cause the City to be the way it is.
To me, Dead Astronauts feels closer to Ransmayr's The Last World or Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress than to other weird fiction - it's not an easy book to read, it's not an easy book to follow, there are many wonderful tracks and hints as to the world itself - for example, the later protagonist says they're homeless. Homelessness implies the existence of home-owners. Home-owners imply the existence of private property, which has to be protected by some kind of law, by some kind of state. So was there even an apocalypse? Is the City more like a restricted zone, similar to VanderMeer's Annihilation, or like the Strugatsky's Stalker? At some point the You says that where they live, running into biotech creatures should be impossible - so the City must be a restricted area, not a global event.
Anyway, if you're into strange novels with no 'classic' plot-structure but a whole lot of atmosphere then this is good for you....more
In this novella you get a bunch of nuns onboard a living spacecraft, helping colonists in the outer reaches of a human space empire that recently collapsed after a long war. Earth is destroyed, there's no particular central government, all you have is local governments and organised religions. No aliens, even though it's not particularly explained how the living spaceships are possible (there's a Saint who made them, but then why is their immune system so alien? I guess that's for future episodes/books).
It's a short novella so story-wise there isn't so much, first you learn how the head-nun is trying to get to grips with her past, one nun leaves the convent since she's fallen in love with another woman, followed by the nuns stumbling over a conspiracy run by a resurgent central government in cahoots with (what's left of) Rome. What follows is something from The Sound Of Music - the nuns save a few colonists from the evil conspiracy, declare their own independent chapter away from the main church, and the novella ends.
If you think that lesbian nuns blowing crap up is a bit far-fetched, may I remind you of the life of Julie d'Aubigny:
Eventually, [d'Aubigny] grew bored of Sérannes and became involved with a young woman. When the girl's parents put her away in the Visitandines convent in Avignon, [d'Aubigny] followed, entering the convent as a postulant. In order to run away with her new love, she stole the body of a dead nun, placed it in the bed of her lover, and set the room on fire to cover their escape.
I have to ask: where do you get a dead nun's body on short notice? And if you use a dead nun's body to cover up you and your lover's escape, wouldn't you need two bodies?
Here's d'Aubigny as an opera singer, because life is always weird and that was her main career after beating a whole pile of men in duels: [image]
To get back to the book, it's short, and it's more of a teaser of a universe and a start of a larger story, that could be fun?...more
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