science fiction

The Grain Kings – Keith Roberts

Published on August 16, 2009

Cover of The Grain Kings

The Grain Kings
Keith Roberts
208 pages
published in 1976

Nothing says seventies science fiction as much as a Fossian cover like this, slapped by Panther and Pan on every book they published regardless of contents. Big, blocky machinery, preferably some sort of spaceship, with brigh colours and no human figures: that’s science fiction and you don’t need anything more. For once, the cover is even justified, showing one of the huge grain combine harvesters from the title story of this collection. Course, you’ll still be disappointed if you get this expecting the sort of cool, clinical, techno-driven stories the cover suggests; Keith Roberts isn’t that kind of writer.

Keith Roberts debuted as a writer in 1964 in New Worlds, involved with, but not a part of, the New Wave. Partially this was due to his personality as he allegedly was quite a difficult character to work with, getting into fights with his editors and publishers. But it was also because he was less interested in the two main obsessions of the New Wave, death & entropy and sex & taboos. Nevertheless if you like Brian Aldiss or Christoper Priest changes are you’ll like Roberts as well. Roberts was more than just a writer; during the sixties he worked both as an editor for the British magazine Science Fantasy/SF Impulse, as well as its artistic director, designing most of the covers for it, as well as for several issues of New Worlds. A shame he didn’t get the chance to design the cover of this book, as the impressionist look he used in his own designs would’ve been much more suited for it. Keith Roberts has always been somewhat of a cult author, best known for his second novel Pavane, a classic alternative history story and one out of two of his books still in print today (the other one is The Furies).

The Best of Murray Leinster

Published on June 28, 2009

Cover of The Best of Murray Leinster

The Best of Murray Leinster
Murray Leinster
368 pages
published in 1978

Yesterday was Murray Leinster day in Virginia set up to honour one of science fiction’s pioneer writers. Murray Leinster started writing science fiction before it even existed as a genre, 1919 with the story “The Runaway Skyscraper” for pulp magazines like Argosy. When Hugo Gernsback created the world’s first dedicated science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories in 1926, Leinster was there, with “The Runaway Skyscraper” reprinted in the July issue. Leinster continued to write science fiction through the Campbell revolution of the late thirties and forties, when the higher writing standards Campbell demanded were too much for many pulp writers and kept being published throughout the fifties and sixties. Though he wrote in other genres, science fiction always seemed to be his first love and several of his stories were first: the first story to predict the internet, the first alternate worlds story, one of the classic stories of first contact.

All of which is why I read this, The Best of Murray Leinster, as a short of honour, a way to remember one of science fiction’s pioneers. This is one of a series of absolutely brilliant short story collections put out by Ballentine/Del Rey in the seventies, collecting the best stories of the socalled Golden Age science fiction writers: people like Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett and Murray Leinster. Though long out of print as far as I known, this series can still be easily found in secondhand bookstores and is well worth searching out. As far as possible the collections were selected by the authors themselves, but sadly Leinster had already died by the time this collection was published. Instead it was edited by J. J. Pierce, who did quite a few of these. It’s a great selection, including the three stories I alluded to above.

The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway

Published on June 24, 2009

Cover of The Gone-Away World

The Gone-Away World
Nick Harkaway
532 pages
published in 2008

Whoa.

Now I understand why The Gone-Away World was one of last year’s most discussed science fiction books. I’d noticed the fuzz but not gotten my hands on a copy until yesterday when I checked it out of the library for beach reading, but once I got it home it gripped me and didn’t let me go until I’d finished it late at night after everybody else had gone to bed. Books like that are rare and you always finish them with a hint of regret that a pleasurable journey is over. And The Gone-Away World is very much a journey type of book, with plenty of amusing diversions along the way asnd in no hurry to reach its destination.

In fact, most of The Gone-Away World after the first chapter is a hugely extended flashback, only catching up to the present three fifths of the way through the story. Some may find this annoying enough to argue that the book would’ve been better off without that teaser. Personally I disagree, I think this structure was necessary. The “teaser” is there to get you interested in the world Harkaway has created, while the extended flashback explains both the personal history of the narrator and the world he lives in and how it came to be. When you rejoin the action after the flashback this added and detailed history gives added weight and poignancy to what happens next. It wouldn’t have worked if it had been in strict chronological order.

The City and the City

Published on May 17, 2009

China Miéville talks about his latest novel, in which he carefully explains the central conciet of The City and the City without spoiling what makes it unique.

People of the Talisman – Leigh Brackett

Published on May 4, 2009

Cover of The People of the Talisman

The People of the Talisman
Leigh Brackett
126 pages
published in 1964

This is the flipside of the same Ace Double that also had The Secret of Sinharat, again starring Leigh Brackett’s greatest hero, Eric John Stark. It’s the longest of the two novels, a whole 126 pages long and a reworking of an earlier story Brackett wrote for the pulp magazine Planet Stories as Black Amazon of Mars. I found it to be slightly less immediately engaging as The Secret of Sinharat, but that’s only a minor quibble.

Interestingly enough, the opening of the story is the same as in the other tale: Eric John Stark is on the run from his enemies, but this time he’s with a friend, the thief Camar. They’re riding through the northern polar wastes of Mars attempting to reach Camar’s home city Kushat before he dies of his wounds. When it becomes clear he isn’t going to make it, he tells Stark of his secret shame, having stolen the Talisman that kept his city safe from the barbarian tribes roaming the wastelands and forces Stark to swear to return this talisman, which is hidden in Camar’s belt. Holding this belt to his head, Stark hears strange voices coming from it.