science fiction Archives - Page 9 of 9

Double Star – Robert A. Heinlein

Published on December 2, 2007

Double Star
Robert A. Heinlein
127 pages
published in 1956

There are times when you can no longer understand why Heinlein has such a good reputation in science fiction, considering his often pernicious influence on other writers and the vileness of his later books, when even the “good Heinleins” do not look so good anymore in retrospect. At such times, it’s good to reread a novel like Double Star and remember why you liked Heinlein in the first place. Double Star has long been one of my favourite Heinleins, but after this reread it may just very well be my alltime favourite. It has all of Heinlein’s strengths and few to none of his weaknesses.

If you’re familiar with Heinlein, especially late Heinlein, you’ll know these weaknesses: a tendency to preach and pontificate, a weakness for obnoxious blowhards as his heroes, an inordinate fondness for incestious relationships… None of these are present here. Instead you get Heinlein at his best, packing a rollicking adventure story, political intrigue and a fully realised future in less than 128 pages.

Neuromancer – William Gibson

Published on November 21, 2007

Cover of Neuromancer

Neuromancer
William Gibson
271 pages
published in 1984

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” The first time I read that sentence was a year or two after Neuromancer had been published; it immediately made all the science fiction I had read before seem oldfashioned and dull. Only other cyberpunk still seemed relevant, though none as relevant as Neuromancer. Gibson had seen the future and pinned it down for us to enjoy. Fast forward ten years and what seemed so radical then now looked dated and silly. It was clear Gibson knew nothing of computers, that his vision was a fraud and Neuromancer an overrated piece of hackwork. Fast forward another ten years and neither view seems true. Enough time has now passed to see Neuromancer for what it really is, a novel that sits comfortably within the science fiction continuum, one part in a thread that runs from Heinlein’s juveniles through Brunner’s late sixties disaster novels like Stand on Zanzibar to modern works like Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon or Stross’ Halting State.

It had been over a decade since I last read this; I’d convinced myself that Neuromancer was actually a bad book and Gibson a hack writer for a few years so I’d buried his novels in the back of my book collection and forgot about them. But having read both Snowcrash and The Diamond Age this year I felt the urge to reread Neuromancer as well and rediscovered that this is actually quite a good novel, if you can take it on its own terms.

Brasyl – Ian McDonald

Published on November 14, 2007

Cover of Brasyl

Brasyl
Ian McDonald
404 pages
published in 2007

Call Ian McDonald the anti-Niven. Whereas Larry Niven has often been accused of writing all his characters as if they belong at an early sixties Californian cocktail party, McDonald’s characters always come across as belonging to the particular ethnic and cultural background they’re said to belong to. This is because McDonald, like the best science fiction writers is genuinely interested in culture as well as science, and genuinely interested in cultures other than his own. He has a knack for painting a picture of a given culture, whether real or invented, through the judicious use of background detail and character interests. So far I’ve not yet read a McDonald novel in which the world he created didn’t convince me. His latest novel, Brasyl, continues that trend. It’s set, of course, in that perpetual country of the future: Brazil.

Comparisons with McDonald’s 2004 novel River of Gods are therefore quickly made, though unjustified. Apart from that both novels take place in countries that are not often used as a setting in science fiction and apart from these settings being an essential part of them, not just an exotic background for some displaced westerners adventure to take place against, the two novels have nothing muchin common. Which is just as well.

Halting State – Charlie Stross

Published on November 13, 2007

Cover of Halting State

Halting State
Charlie Stross
351 pages
published in 2007

It’s ten years from now, Scotland is independent and uses a proper currency, the euro, there’s a new internet boom, phones have eaten the personal computer just like they’ve eaten digital cameras and mp3 players for most uses, security is everywhere, and various forms of massive online and alternate reality games are mass pastimes made possible by the ubiquitous overlay of offline reality by online reality in ways only hinted at by Google Earth today. Twenty years ago the internet was still a playtoy for academics and Cold Warriors, ten years ago everybody knew about it but still thought of it as an addon, today it’s an essential tool for most white collar jobs and in 2017 it’s literally everywhere to the point that getting lost in a strange city is no longer an option. In short, online and offline reality are intermixed to such an extent that a bank robbery in an mmorpg can have very real offline consequences.

Which is where Halting State starts, with sergeant Sue Smith of the Edinburgh police force being assigned a confused case which may or may not be a robbery, which after some further confusion turns out to have been a bank robbery in an online game, with which the local police force should never have become involved. It’s a hacking incident, with the nasty overtones of an insider trading financial scam, as Hayek, the company running the bank, has just had its IPO and its shares will tank once the news leaks out. For Sue, this means she’s up to her neck into something that’s not just above her, but which also has the potential to go political, quick. Not what you need to keep your scores up and your bosses happy.