Legacy (vt A Tale of Two Clocks) – James H Schmitz (1962)
‘MEET TRIGGER ARGEE. . . . SHE’S ABOUT TO ENTER THE MYSTERY OF HER LIFE — IN LEGACY
Ancient living machines that after millennia of stillness suddenly begin to move under their own power, for reasons that remain a mystery to men. Holati Tate discovered them — then disappeared. Trigger Argee was his closest associate — she means to find him. She’s brilliant, beautiful, and skilled in every known martial art. She’s worth plenty — dead or alive — to more than one faction in this obscure battle. And she’s beginning to have a chilling notion that the long-vanished Masters of the Old Galaxy were wise when they exiled the plasmoids to the most distant and isolated world they knew. . . .’
Blurb from the 1979 paperback edition
Trigger Argee is a curious character. She works for Holati Tate, a former space scout, who now holds a high level position in the Precolonisation Department. Trigger is young, intelligent, highly attractive and a bit of a ninja, being proficient in martial arts and shooting things.
The novel is set in Schmitz’ Hub universe where Humanity has settled on many new worlds. On some, artefacts of a vanished elder race were discovered by Holati Tate. These are plasmoids, biological machines which have remained inert until now, and plasmoid research is part of Trigger’s responsibilities.
Trigger becomes suspicious of Holati’s sudden disappearance and, unable to get hold of him, believes there are things she is not being told. Being a bit hot headed, she determines to sneak off to see her boyfriend.
It seems however that Trigger is a target for the Grabbers, professional thieves and kidnappers, and her life becomes suddenly very adventurous.
As the truth unravels Trigger is forced to go undercover as various factions attempt to kidnap or kill her.
It’s refreshing to read an SF novel from this time with a feisty female lead character who can stand her own ground. On the other hand she is objectively sexualised to a certain degree but one has to give Schmitz credit for putting women on an equal footing with men.
It’s on a Young Adult level, but the writing and characterisation is top quality.
Schmitz is very underrated.
A Night Without Stars (Chronicle of the Fallers 02) – Peter F Hamilton (2016)
The planet Bienvenido is in crisis. It has finally escaped the Void, emerging into regular space. But it’s millions of light-years from Commonwealth assistance, and humans are battling the Fallers for control of their world. This rapacious adversary, evolved to destroy all sentient life, has infiltrated every level of human society – hijacking unwilling bodies so its citizens fear their leaders, friends and family.
A mysterious figure known as the Warrior Angel leads a desperate resistance. She’s helped by forbidden Commonwealth technology, which gives her a crucial edge. But the government obstructs the Angel’s efforts at every turn, blinded by prejudice and technophobia. As Fallers also prepare to attack from the skies, she might need to incite rebellion to fight this invasion. But the odds seem impossible.
Then astronaut Ry Evine uncovers one last hope. On a mission against the enemy, his spacecraft damages an unidentified vessel. This crash-lands on the planet carrying unexpected cargo: a baby. This extraordinary Commonwealth child possesses knowledge that could save them all. But if the Fallers catch her, the people of Bienvenido will not survive.
Blurb from the 2016 Del Rey Edition
One has to confess that beginning this book was a worry since it had been years since I read The Abyss Beyond Dreams, and as I’m not too good with even remembering the names of my loved ones, it’s rather too much to expect me to remember a large number of the standard Hamilton enormous cast.
However, this is set some 250 years in the future following the Great Transition (as it is now called) when the Void ejected the planet Bienvenido to an orbit about a sun, lost in the space between galaxies.
Society has advanced to a point (with the covert help of Nigel Sheldon’s ANAdroids) where rockets can be sent into orbit to destroy the alien trees which are bombarding the planet with Faller eggs. These are alien predators which ‘eggsume’ human bodies and reassemble them, but with alien Faller minds.
The world is tightly controlled by an authoritarian regime which not only withholds information about the extent of Faller infiltration, but restricts technology which could help, fearing that the Eliters with their inherited Commonwealth macrocellular clusters and advanced genetics will stage a coup.
There is therefore a mostly new cast, although some of the more long-lived characters, such as The Warrior Angel, and Nigel Sheldon’s Anadroids, are still extant.
Eliters who wish to have any sort of meaningful career have to keep their status secret, and there is an interesting contrast between Captain Chaing of the feared PSR secret police and Ry, an astronaut, both of whom are hiding their Eliter status in order to retain their position.
The good guys are in a race against time to assemble a defence against the Fallers before either a) the Fallers take control of the planet or b) the government nukes the rest of the world in an attempt to destroy their forces.
It is a far more satisfactory novel than Abyss which I found marred by the repeated format used in the Void trilogy. The Fallers themselves, as I have previously mentioned, are merely another incarnation of the Possessed from his Night’s Dawn trilogy, which also featured star systems being transported far away from their home galaxy into intergalactic space.
There is something missing, though. Hamilton is at his best when he can move from one extraordinary human (or alien) community to another. We love the AIs, and the wormhole technology, the fascinating environments that Man has created on a thousand planets, the ships, the Dyson spheres and the myriad alien environments. Hamilton cones into his own here in the thrilling climax, when we do indeed find wonder and surprises on other planets of the system.
This final section sings, in the way that Nights Dawn and the Starflyer sequence sang, but the rest is slightly lacking on wonder albeit very high scoring in pace and excitement.
Despite my criticisms there is no doubt that Hamilton is still streets ahead of other writers of the New Space Opera. His writing pervades you with its atmosphere and ideas and colours your day. I am a huge fan, but he can do better than this.
It is not clear if Brexit played any subconscious role in the plotting, but I am sure the conspiracy theorists among fans have already blogged their views on Hamilton having a man called Nigel trying to save society from the unwanted rules of a controlling and undemocratic power. The world is divided between two factions with entrenched views, none of which will accept the viewpoints of the other, and the government are shameless in lying about the dangers the population face. When the people leave, however, they realise that their life is now a bit shit, and they are left at the mercy of a vicious right wing government who continue to lie about everything and stay in power for two hundred and fifty years. There’s got to be something in that.
The Mind Pool – Charles Sheffield (1986)
The original version of this novel was The Nimrod Hunt, written as a tribute to Alfred Bester and attempting a Besterite style. This was revised and re-released with the title of ‘The Mind Pool’ as Sheffield was apparently not happy with the original ending.
Centuries from now, Man has moved out into space and formed alliances with a group of alien races. The aliens are all, it appears, mentally unable to accept the concept of killing sentient life and are both appalled and fascinated by Humanity’s casual attitude to killing even members of its own species.
A human scientist, Livia Morgan, under the command of Esro Mondrian, Head of Border Security, has been experimenting with sentient constructs to patrol the borders of Human space as a precaution against contact with hostile aliens.
The constructs turn on their master however and are destroyed, but not before one escapes through a Mattin Link (a matter transmitter essentially) to another part of Human space.
The alien council, having been notified, determine that teams, each one containing members of each alien race, be trained to hunt the construct.
The aliens have stipulated that the human elements must have no prior military training, which makes selection practically impossible unless one searches on the most lawless planet in space, which happens to be Earth.
Esro Mondrian has two other reasons for visiting Earth. One is to meet his lover, Lady Tatiana, a woman addicted to the Paradox drug. The other is revealed later in the novel.
Luther Brachis has a friendly but competitive work relationship with Esro, but employs devious means to achieve his ends, actions which set in motion a complex series of events.
There’s an awful lot going on in this novel which is a lot more complex – structurally and in terms of plot – than other Sheffield works. We have troubled and complex relationships, trips to other worlds, space station laboratories, the grotesques of the warrens of Earth and a set of aliens that are biologically fascinating, but imbued with cosy Simak-esque personalities. Indeed, there are elements of this that remind one of ‘The Werewolf Principle’ particularly when we encounter the Mind Pool phenomenon, whereby a mental gestalt is achieved.
We have three couples, all of whom have issues of one sort or another, the male halves being irrevocably changed by the end of the novel. Indeed, some characters undergo a form of role reversal.
We meet Chan Dalton, central figure of the sequel ‘The Spheres of Heaven’ as a physically perfect male but with the mental development of a small child. Since his childhood he has been looked after by Leah, who loves him. Mondrian, desperate for recruits, and having bought Leah and Dalton’s indenture without having realised Dalton’s deficiencies, decides to employ banned technology to try and stimulate Chan’s mind into growth.
By the end of the novel Chan is a mature intelligent individual while Brachis and Mondrian, for different reasons, have been left in a mentally vegetative state, now being cared for by their respective partners, as Leah once cared for Chan.
The Morgan Construct itself is almost immaterial to the story. It is a Maguffin around which this complex interplay of politics and relationships is wound.
It has its flaws. There’s a certain retro SF style to it, in keeping with Sheffield’s claim that the novel is an Alfred Bester tribute. This works well enough in all the locations barring Earth itself which is roughly sketched with little depth and containing characters that border on parody.
The Mind Pool element is introduced very late in the story and its genesis and method of operation is a little unclear, at least to me.
On balance though, it’s a great bit of space opera featuring a set of main characters with unusually complex motivations.
The Middle Kingdom (Chung Kuo #03) – David Wingrove (2012)
The third volume in Wingrove’s revised epic future history is the start of the original series published in 1989. An overview of this can be found in my original review of The Middle Kingdom (1989).
I imagine that the 1989 version has been split into two for this new release. The original series comprised of eight hefty volumes while the new ‘re-cast’ version is twenty smaller issues with two new volumes at either end. I can’t determine how much this has been revised if at all. One wouldn’t have thought the series needed any revision until perhaps the last two volumes of the original release, which had major flaws due to publishers’ interference.
Those new to Chung Kuo who have read the first two ‘recast’ volumes would be advised to persevere. I am dubious as to whether volumes one or two added anything valuable to the series. They had that feeling of having been ‘bolted on’ for no good reason.
Here, however, the story really kicks off and I am taken back to my first addiction to this brilliant series. Wingrove handles the multi-character storyline with aplomb and the pace is generally fast. It’s a master class in world-building if nothing else as one does get immersed in this highly detailed dystopia from the outset. Page-turningly good and highly recommended.
Chung Kuo I – The Middle Kingdom – David Wingrove (1989)
‘How many billions lived in the City that filled the great northern plains of Europe? The two men crab-scuttling across the dome that roofed the city neither knew nor cared. They thought only of the assassination that was their task.
Chung Kuo. For three thousand years the world-encompassing Empire of the Han had endured. War and famine long banished, the Council of Seven ruled with absolute authority. Their boast: that the Great Wheel of Change itself had ceased to turn.
Yet at that moment of supreme strength and confidence, Chung Kuo was suddenly vulnerable. A challenge had arisen from men who dreamed of Change – although Change would mean war and a return to all the old half-forgotten savageries of the past.’
Blurb from the 1990 NEL paperback edition.
In the 22nd Century, China has control of the Earth and has turned its continents into seven enclosed cities, each ruled by a Tang, one of The Seven; the rulers of Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom.
Each city consists of many levels, socially and physically distinct and each citizen’s behaviour determines whether they rise or fall from their level.
The Seven control everything and impose Edicts against technological progress, seeking to keep the peace by maintaining a social status quo by halting the great wheel of change.
In this generation, however, there appear several individuals whose effect on society, for good or ill, will herald change.
Chinese are known as Han, and compose the majority of the ruling classes. Europeans or ‘Hung mao’, have been assimilated into Chinese culture to a large degree but there is a faction of Dispersionists who wish to build starships to colonise other stars, creating a society outside of the Tang’s control.
Major DeVore, originally a high-placed officer in the Tang’s forces, is part of the Dispersionists’ terrorist wing and organises the assassination of a Minister, which sets in motion a chain of political events; events which DeVore strategically controls and exploits for his own ends like a round of his favourite game, Wei-Chi.
This is the first volume of a very under-rated (although possibly ultimately flawed) epic. From Nineteen Eighty-Nine, it was ‘The Wire’ of its age, with its multi-character viewpoint covering all sectors of society from the wretched cannibal society of The Clay (the lightless bottom level) to the Tang himself.
Over the preceding century the Han have rewritten Earth history to suggest that Chung Kuo has always been the dominant civilisation and a ministry exists to ensure that any other historical alternative theory or account is treated as treason.
In this volume we follow several key characters; DeVore, Li Shai Tung, the Tang of City Europe; Li Yuan, the Tang’s son; Kim Ward, a scientific prodigy refugee from The Clay; Ben Shepherd; a cloned advisor to the Tang administration; Karr and Chen, trained fighters from the lower levels who now work for the Tang’s security forces.
It is certainly far more than an SF blockbuster thriller. The complex political manoeuvring and the interweaving individual storylines are handled very well, and the writing occasionally approaches the profound.
On its first publication there were complaints in the journal of the British Science Fiction Association about its sexual elements and one section in particular of extreme sexual violence, although one has to say that the section needs to be looked at in context. Is this merely an apt demonstration of DeVore’s methods of controlling people and the depths of his depravity?
The original series which ran to eight large volumes was marred by the publisher’s insistence on ending the series with volume eight, when the original plan was nine books. The original ending was therefore, somewhat unsatisfactory. Wingrove has recently revised and expanded the entire series which is being released in twenty shorter volumes, the first volume of which is ‘Son of Heaven’ (2011).
Synthetic Men of Mars (Mars #09) – Edgar Rice Burroughs (1939)
John Carter, Mighty Warlord of Mars, rides to new and terrifying adventures.
Captured by deadly warriors mounted on huge birds he is taken to the ill-omened city of Morbus.
There he meets Ras Thavas, evil genius and master surgeon. A man who has succeeded in his nightmare wish of creating life in his own beings – creatures that ultimately rebel and threaten the lives of Ras Thavas, of John Carter and of all Mars.
Blurb to the 1973 NEL paperback edition.
Using more or less the same plot as ‘A Princess of Mars’ Burroughs takes us back to the dying planet of Barsoom where the ‘incomparable’ Dejah Thoris has been crippled in a flying accident. No other man can save her but the thousand year old evil genius and scientist-surgeon, Ras Thavas, Master Mind of Mars.
Setting out to find Ras Thavas, John Carter takes along young Vor Daj to the great Toonolian Marshes where, before long, the two have been captured.
The hero and narrator of this the ninth in Burroughs’ Martian series, is Vor Daj who perhaps predictably, falls in love with a captured beauty, Janai, who is also coveted by an evil Jeddak (much as John Carter when he was captured by the green man of Mars fell in love with a captured Dejah Thoris, who was also coveted by an evil green Martian Jeddak).
Our heroes end up in the laboratory of Ras Thavas who has been performing cloning experiments and has, as my mother might have pointed out to him, made a rod for his own back. The malformed clones have taken over and are forcing Ras Thavas to create a vat-grown army with which to take over all of Mars.
Vor Daj persuades Ras to transfer his brain into one of the monsters so that he can infiltrate the Jeddak’s guard and rescue his love. This he does, while wooing her in a kind of Cyrano De Bergerac/Beauty and The Beast fashion while all the time hoping that his body hasn’t been used for spare parts or been eaten by the mass of living flesh which escapes from vat No. 4.
Burroughs adds nothing new to the series here, but it’s interesting to see the concept of cloning appearing (although it is not described as such) and to compare this work with Richard E Chadwick’s ‘The Flesh Guard’ which posited a similar premise in which vat-grown creatures were employed as soldiers by a Nazi Regime.
The Naked God (Night’s Dawn #3) – Peter F Hamilton (1999)
‘HELL JUST WENT QUANTUM
The Confederation is starting to collapse politically and economically, allowing the ‘possessed’ to infiltrate more worlds.
Quinn Dexter is loose on Earth, destroying the great arcologies one at a time. As Louise Kavanagh tries to track him down, she manages to acquire some strange and powerful allies whose goal does not quite match her own.
The campaign to liberate Mortonridge from the possessed degenerates into a horrendous land battle of the type not seen by humankind for six hundred years. Then some of the protagonists escape in a very unexpected direction…
Joshua Calvert and Syrinx now fly their starships on a mission to find the Sleeping God – which an alien race believes holds the key to finally overthrowing the possessed.’
Blurb from the 2000 Pan paperback edition.
The conclusion to Hamilton’s shelf-busting trilogy doesn’t initially quite match up to the brilliance of the first two books, but thankfully builds to a deeply satisfying climax.
In the conclusion, we discover that the sentient habitat Tranquility, which we last saw disappear while under attack from the forces of Al Capone, has reappeared among the Edenist habitats of Jupiter.
It would appear that all along the giant living Rama-style cylinder had built-in technology which would allow it to ‘jump’ through space in times of danger. The Kiint seemed unaware of this, however, and had already teleported back to their homeworld. The juvenile Kiint Haile also took along Jay Hilton, much to the disapproval of the Kiint.
One might argue that Hamilton’s work relies too much on militaristic action and graphic violence. Certainly, a large chunk of this final novel covers the ‘Liberation of Mortonridge’ – an attempt to free the population of a peninsula on one of the planets of the Kulu Kingdom.
A vast army of bitek ‘serjeants’ have been produced to invade the area and de-possess the inhabitants. This turns into a long and bitter struggle, but one which focuses more on the effect it has on the protagonists than on shoot-em-up action.
Much of the novel is also about explanations and revelations. More is discovered about the Kiint whose involvement (somewhat short of outright interference) with the history of humanity goes far far deeper anyone had realised.
In the previous novels, the possessed had taken entire planets into parallel dimensions. Here, we follow them to discover that their lives are not the Paradise they expected. It is discovered, as was suggested previously, that the possessors’ ability to change the shape of the bodies they inhabited encouraged cancerous tumours to proliferate, giving the possessed a far shorter lifespan than the immortality they imagined.
Joshua Calvert, the central character about whom all the storylines revolve, is sent on a mission to discover the Sleeping God of the Tyrathca, somewhere beyond the Orion nebula; a godlike artefact/entity ‘Big Dumb Object’ which may hold the key to solving the possession crisis.
Ultimately, and cleverly, the various storylines and character journeys converge to one point in time. Joshua himself questions the Sleeping God (a stable mirrorlike naked singularity orbiting a planetless star) on the coincidences which have led him (and other characters) to this point and is given an answer which, if not really plausible, provides a certain kind of satisfaction to the reader within the context of the work.
In this novel, the themes of transformation and revelation come to the fore. No character remains unchanged by their journeys through the crisis and ultimately, the whole of human society is transformed.
This, along with Robinson’s ‘Mars’ trilogy, is one of the last great works of SF of the 20th century. They are vastly different in tone, style, and their categorical positions within the genre, but they give me faith that SF can still – and will in the future – produce the sense of wonder which many thought had been long lost.
A Door Into Ocean – Joan Slonczewski (1986)
‘From the ocean world of Shora, Merwen the Impatient and Usha the Inconsiderate travel to Valedon, the world of stone. The Valans view with suspicion the ancient female race of Shora: with their webbed fingers, their withdrawal into ‘whitetrance’ and their marvellous arts of healing. Where the Sharers of Shora hope for understanding, they are met with aggression.
Joan Slonczewski pushes the moral and political philosophy of non-violence to its very limits in a powerful and gripping narrative. To read it is to see your own future in the balance.’
Blurb from the 1987 Women’s Press paperback edition.
In a far-future galaxy Humanity spread to a thousand worlds, but following devastating wars and a period of ethnic cleansing, the number of human worlds was reduced to ninety-seven, ruled by The Patriarch.
The Patriarch has forbidden certain technologies or sciences to be employed independently, such as nuclear power or genetic engineering, driven by the fear that it would lead to a further great war.
On the planet Valedon, two strangers appear in the town square; hairless women with violet skin who wish to ‘learnshare’ in order to discover whether the Valans are human. The stonecutter’s son, Spinel, becomes fascinated with them and eventually leaves with them for the ocean world of Shora.
Travelling with them is the Lady Berenice, a woman who has known the natives of Shora since she was a child and who is also being employed as a spy for the Valan government.
Her fiance, Realgar, is a General and a favourite of Takin, the ‘Protector’ of Valedon.
Valans have been trading peacefully with the Shorans for many years, but following a visit by the Patriarch’s envoy, Malachite, the Valans suspect that Shora may be either a very valuable resource or a terrible danger. Realgar is sent to Shora to ‘deal with’ the natives who have become increasingly restless since the number of Valans on their world increased and the ecological balance began to change.
Structurally we follow three couples, Merwen and Usha (the original two Shorans who visited Valedon), Berenice and Realgar, and Spinel and Lystra (the daughter of Merwen and Usha) who at first do not take to each other (or so they believe) but later both discover that the other is a very different person to the one they believed they loved.
On the whole, we see the drama unfold through the eyes of these six.
The natives of Shora are all female, at least to the average human observer, although a couple are able to conceive children between them. Their passive resistance and incomprehension of external societies which attempt to impose rules on them by force no doubt parallels the protests of the Nineteen Eighties by many women at such places as Greenham Common. The success of such protests is evinced by the fact that the very phrase ‘Greenham Common’ is familiar to most of us decades later, and that their message was relaid by the media and the world and changed us, to whatever degree, as a society.
The women here are protesting at first about environmental vandalism, and their almost genetic adherence to a non-aggressive resistance eventually pays off, though at a terrible price to their population.
The setting is an interesting one, albeit symbolic, since the very masculine patriarchal ‘stone’ world of Valedon is contrasted by the very female ‘water’ world of Shora. The women live on giant rafts of living vegetation in a world where every species (including themselves) is a vital part of the world’s biosphere. There have been similar waterworlds in the past, notably in CS Lewis’ ‘Voyage to Venus’ (or ‘Perelandra), where again the femininity of the sea is contrasted with the male rock of the island (in this case standing in for the Forbidden Tree of Knowledge in The Garden of Eden)
Jack Vance’s ‘The Blue World’ is almost the complete antithesis of Lewis’ since Vance uses his novel to demonstrate the absurdity and the detrimental effect on society of organised religion. As in ‘Door into Ocean’ Vance’s natives live a somewhat idyllic existence on island systems of giant lilypads.
Published by The Women’s Press it is not surprisingly a very female work in tone and theme, which does make a refreshing change. Although very Romantic in style, there is a solid structure and a healthy respect for the integrity of the internal scientific logic.
Interestingly, the Shoran philosophy is to live in harmony with the Ocean and its life, although Slonczewski has muddied the waters a little by letting us know that much of the flora and fauna was genetically engineered by the Shorans, even themselves.
And, there is an obvious political contrast between the patriarchal (literally ruled by The Patriarch and his ‘protectors’) society of Valedon and the leaderless Shorans who are, in essence, a collective.
Despite the perhaps heavy-handed symbolism it is nevertheless a beautifully crafted and important piece of work. I’m not sure how Gollancz picks or obtains works for its SF Masterworks series but this should certainly be on the Gollancz shortlist.
Although it’s published by the Women’s Press, men are allowed to read this. In fact, I’m pretty sure men would benefit more from reading this than women would. Women already know how bad men are at running the world.
City – Clifford D Simak (1952)
‘It started in 1990…
Cheap atomic power was a reality.
Hydroponic farming ensured enough to eat.
So everywhere men left the cities, abandoning the ancient huddling places of the human race.
At last, man was free.
And left behind – in the dead and empty cities – man’s memories remained as symbols of the childhood of the race. The Golden Age had come at last after generations of war and toil.
And yet…IT WAS ALSO THE PRELUDE TO THE DAY WHEN MAN WOULD BE SUCCEEDED BY ANOTHER RACE’
Blurb from the 1965 Four Square edition
City is a fix-up novel culled from the pages of Astounding and comprising of eight related stories and additional linking text.
The first story, ‘City’, is a tale of men, a tale which is being analysed in the linking text by a group of sentient dogs who believe the tales told by Dogs of the race of Men to be merely fables and Man himself to be a myth.
Simak’s naïve and somewhat surreal view of the future is based very much on his love for small-town America and its communities and values, and is often tinged with nostalgia for a way of life which has passed. Simak often depicts an Earth which has been abandoned by man, where Nature has been allowed to grow back over the scars which Man created.
The City of the title story is represented by one of its residential areas, a place of suburban houses and lawns which, like the rest of the City, is almost abandoned. Centralised automated farming technology has made vast tracts of land free for habitation and this, combined with the bizarre concept of an atomic plane for every home has lured people away to private estates in the country.
The worthy officials of the City Council however, refuse to accept that their City is dead and are in the process of evicting the last remaining residents (who have been labelled criminals and vagrants) who are squatting in the empty houses, unwilling to abandon the community where they spent their lives.
It’s a strange and unreal tale reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, and is full of poetry and atmosphere.
‘Huddling Place’ take us further into the future, to where descendant of one of the City’s characters has become an agoraphobic recluse in his country house, where he lives with his robot butler Jenkins. Having abandoned the cities, humanity is now abandoning the Earth, either for Mars or the interiors of the their homes from where they can travel ‘virtually’ via a holographic projection network. His agoraphobia prevents him from flying to Mars to save Juwain, the ancient Martian philosopher who was on the verge of producing a practical philosophy for humanity which would occasion the transformation of the race.
‘Census’ takes us forward in time again to the same house where the Webster grandson has surgically (rather than genetically) altering dogs enabling them to speak. Mankind is now heading for the stars while isolated groups of mutated humans live quietly in the wilderness.
Simak is again enjoining a return to a mere pastoral existence in which technology is only employed as a means to that end.
Technological developments here have allowed those with pioneering spirit to leave, those who were restricted (physically and spiritually) by existence within the city have been freed, allowing others the space to breathe within and alongside Nature.
In this section, Richard Grant, seeking the final clue to complete Juwain’s philosophy for humanity, meets the mutant Joe, a man of extended longevity, high intelligence and yet exhibiting no empathy with his fellow sapients, but rather a shocking amorality.
And so it goes on… Humanity, partly as a result of Joe unleashing the Juwain philosophy across the earth, is transformed, and is converted into a near-immortal form of life of high intelligence which can live on or in the planet Jupiter, abandoning the Earth to a handful of humans, the Dogs, the mutants and the robots.
Simak was never a writer for technical details. Jupiter is described as having a surface, and the Jovian ‘conversion process’ is hastily drawn with little explanation as to the nature of the process, something which no doubt would be explained as ‘genetic engineering’ today.
James Blish used a similar premise in his collection of related tales ‘The Seedling Stars’ while Frederik Pohl’s ‘Man Plus’ employs a combination of surgical and mechanical techniques to convert a man into a creature capable of living unaided on the surface of Mars.
‘City’ is a novel which is ultimately flawed by internal confusion of identity. The linking text implies that the stories are fables from ancient Dog History, and their content supports this, but the style seems at odds with the somewhat fairytale nature of the later stories in which talking bears, wolves, racoons and squirrels bring a rather schmaltzy Disney-esque sentimentality to the narrative.
Having said that, Simak attempts to explore the issue of what it means to be human. The humans, en-masse, chose the path of enlightenment offered by the conversion to Jovian forms, a path rejected by the Webster family (whose genealogy links all these stories) and a handful of others.
The legacy of humanity lies with the robots who are dedicated to developing the race of Dogs, unpolluted by human values and failings. Man is seen to be a creature willing to kill for what he wants, as when one of the Websters considers killing the Jovian ‘prototype’ Fowler in order to prevent the human race’s mass exodus to Jupiter, or John Webster’s solution to the problem of Joe the mutant’s experimental ants (who eventually threaten the entire planet) which is to poison them.
This may be reading far too much into what is at the end of the day a rather patchwork construction which, though poetic and inventive, fails to provide a satisfactory denouement. Flawed though it may be however, it is still a strange masterpiece that holds its own against the mainstream SF novels of the time.
Containment – Christian Cantrell (2010)
‘As the Earth’s ability to support human life begins to diminish at an alarming rate, the Global Space Agency is formed with a single mandate: protect humanity from extinction by colonizing the solar system as quickly as possible. Venus, being almost the same mass as Earth, is chosen over Mars as humanity’s first permanent steppingstone into the universe.
Arik Ockley is part of the first generation to be born and raised off-Earth. After a puzzling accident, Arik wakes up to find that his wife is almost three months pregnant. Since the colony’s environmental systems cannot safely support any increases in population, Arik immediately resumes his work on AP, or artificial photosynthesis, in order to save the life of his unborn child. Arik’s new and frantic research uncovers startling truths about the planet, and about the distorted reality the founders of the colony have constructed for Arik’s entire generation. Everything Arik has ever known is called into question, and he must figure out the right path for himself, his wife, and his unborn daughter.’
Blurb from the 2010 Kindle Edition
This reminded me very much of Daniel F. Galouye’s ‘Dark Universe’ since ‘Containment’ is a pocket universe novel, one of a subgenre in which the protagonists exist within narrow boundaries and are ignorant of any conditions existing outside the limits of their domain.
Arik has been born under a dome on Venus. An environmental crisis is raging on earth and the handpicked colonists are one of Earth’s last hope for survival. Arik’s generation were carefully planned and were the first children to be born. Any further population increase would take them beyond the limits of their food supplies. One of the projects that Arik is working on is to increase photosynthesis in plants so that the hydroponic gardens produce more oxygen.
One day Arik wakes up in hospital with some of his memory missing. His wife is three months pregnant which is bad news for the colony as it is not able to produce additional oxygen.
Things start to get strange when he receives a message sent from himself before the accident occurred.
Cantrell is one of the new generation of self-published e-book writers whose numbers are growing. There’s very little that is ground-breaking or original here, however. There is a surprise element but even that has been done before to better effect as in Brian Aldiss’ ‘Non Stop’ or, as I have said, on Galouye’s ‘Dark Universe’.
There is obviously a temptation to rush to publish but authors need to be sure that their work is ready. The traditional publishing route may be a more obstacle-strewn journey but one can be at least reasonably sure, should your work be published, that it is in a fit state to go out into the world.
Norstrilia – Cordwainer Smith (1975)
To our detriment, this is Smith’s only novel, his output otherwise being a large number of quirky short stories mostly set in this universe of The Instrumentality of Mankind. Having said that, ‘Norstrilia’ has a complex origin since it was originally published in two shorter separate parts in 1964 as ‘The Planet Buyer’ (which itself was expanded from a shorter piece ‘The Boy Who Bought Old Earth’) and ‘The Store of Heart’s Desire’
Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan to the Hundred and Fifty-First (known as Rod McBan) is a boy living on the peculiar world of Norstrilia, heir to one of the prosperous mutant sheep ranches.
Norstrilia, or Old North Australia, where the people are still subjects of Queen Elizabeth II, (despite the fact she’s been dead for at least fifteen thousand years) was originally an Australian farming world until a virus attacked the sheep. What could have been tragedy changed the fortunes of mankind as a by-product of the sheep’s illness was Stroon, a longevity drug. Thus Norstrilia became the richest planet in the galaxy. The Norstrilians did not want to change their way of life however, and so incredibly high taxes are paid on any imported items to their world. Their children are tested in their teens to see if they are physically and mentally fit to survive, and those that fail get sent to a painless death.
Rod McBan is about to be tested, and his family are worried. Rod seems unable to hier or spiek. In other words, unlike the other telepathic natives of Norstrilia, he can neither hear thoughts nor project them. A girl who loves him, Lavinia, knows that this is not strictly true as there are times when Rod can hier everyone’s thoughts for miles around and when he is angry his mind is powerful enough to disable or kill.
Having survived the test, with the help of Lord Redlady, a member of the ruling body – The Instrumentality of Mankind – it seems Rod is still in danger from one Houghton Syme, an old schoolmate of Rod’s who is determined to kill or destroy him. Rod has access to an ancient computer, hidden on his land which, when Rod asks it for help, puts a financial scheme in motion. By the next day, Rod McBan is the owner of virtually all of Old Earth and therefore has to travel there to take ownership of his prize and escape the murderous attentions of Houghton Syme.
Once on Earth he becomes acquainted with the Underpeople; races of bioengineered animals who have a prophecy of a rich man coming to Earth to set them free. Could this be Rod McBan?
Smith certainly had a facility for creating well-defined characters. Norstrilia is set in a marvellously detailed if slightly unrealistic landscape. The narrative is peppered with songs and poetry which adds to a certain undercurrent of joy that suffuses the book.
Eccentric and fascinating figures appear and disappear, such as The Catmaster, who is a kind of guru/healer figure and the only Underperson allowed (by special dispensation of The Instrumentality) to take Stroon.
Smith throws in ideas right. left and centre, such as the giant alien architects who once visited human worlds and built indestructible buildings on various planets (on a whim) before leaving.
It’s a marvellously clever mix of comedy, drama, satire and romanticism, interspersed with poetry and song.
At the end of the day, however, it is simply the story of a young man who (much like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’) travels to another world, has adventures, makes friends and enemies and ultimately realises that what he wants and needs has been at home in his own back yard all the time.
The Prefect – Alastair Reynolds (2007)
Reynolds takes us back to about a century before the events of ‘Revelation Space’.
Surrounding the planet ‘Yellowstone’ and its famous Chasm City are the ten thousand orbital habitats known as The Glitter Band in which humanity can choose to explore whatever form of society they wish. The one aspect common to all societies is democracy. All habitats have a polling core via which they can vote on issues within their own small worlds or as part of the ten thousand. Law is maintained by Prefects, based on Panoply.
As much trade is carried on amongst the habitats and intersystem there is also a shoal of conjoiner ships.
Conjoiners, who feature heavily in Reynolds’ first four novels, are a loose network of extreme augmented cyborgs, some looking reasonably human and others quite monstrous.
Dreyfus is a dedicated prefect and his deputy a genetically modified pig. The Supreme Prefect, Jane, was the victim of a rogue artificial intelligence called ‘The Clockmaker’ eleven years previously who placed a biomechanical scarab on her neck before the Clockmaker was contained and destroyed. Since then she has not been allowed to sleep or to have anyone come within a few feet of her.
Suddenly, one of the habitats is destroyed, blasted almost in two by the drive of a conjoiner ship.
Dreyfus is asked to investigate. He begins to suspect that things are not what they seem. There seems no motive for the destruction, and further, a mysterious message sent to the habitat before it was destroyed appears to have originated from Panoply itself.
Whether or not it is deliberate, there is a theme of isolation running through, from the Clockmaker itself, which had to be kept isolated within an electromagnetic cage, to Jane, isolated from her human companions by the scarab on her neck.
Thalia Ng is isolated within Panoply culture as she is the daughter of a traitor and fighting to earn her own reputation.
Gaffney is isolated by the fact that he is working alone for Aurora, a digital copy of a young girl. Then there is Clepsydra, a conjoiner trapped inside an asteroid and forced to feed on her sleeping shipmates.
Dreyfus himself is still mourning the death of his wife, and his closest relationships are with Spaner, who is an augmented pig, Jane Armonier, who can have no physical contact with anyone, and Thalia Ng.
This is of course a prequel to ‘Revelation Space’ and although a wonderful read and a page-turning adventure, lacks the depth and detailed texture of ‘Revelation Space’ and its sequels.
The denouement is a little disappointing with much happening ‘out of sight’.
It does however, present an interesting moral puzzle since Aurora attempts to gain control of the Glitterband in order to prevent a ‘time of plague’, a time which was foreseen (how is not important) by the Conjoiners.
We know from the earlier novels that this is the melding plague. Ultimately Aurora was right, but the reader is left to judge the morality of saving billions of people from disaster by enslaving them.
The Movement of Mountains – Michael Blumlein (1987)
‘The Domers were huge and stupid.
Genetically engineered with a five year life span, they were salve miners, created and maintained to work the ice-cold planet Eridis. They brought out the fungus that became Mutacillin, Earth’s wonder drug.
But the Domers were changing.
A viral infection had spread from earth. They were becoming mentally, intellectually awakened. Memories and hopes were stirring in them. And in their near humanity they were becoming useless for their designed purpose.
Doctor Jules Ebert had to cure them, turn them back into cloned, mindless effectiveness…’
Blurb from the 1989 New English Library paperback edition.
From the outset this extraordinary novel sets us up for something rather unusual. Jules, the narrator of the novel, is a doctor, but one with an eating disorder. He and his lover Jessica live in separate areas of a future earth. Jules, being a professional, lives in an enclave where ‘guards’ will immobilise anyone not registered on their database. Genetically engineered Fargos Hounds roam the streets and consume waste plastic, before excreting it into recycling receptacles. Jessica lives in a less salubrious area where she pays her landlord and his son, Mingo Boyels, rent in the form of sexual favours.
Jessica is planning to move to the planet of Eridis, where a unique fungus has been found which produces Mutacillin, an antibiotic which mutates to combat even drug resistant bacteria. She has been offered a job working to discover how to grow the fungus off-world, something that has been so far impossible to do.
In the meantime, Mingo has visited Jules as a patient, exhibiting signs of herpes (thought to be extinct) but which may be a symptom of a new sickness called Barea’s disease, which seems to be beyond Mutacillin’s power to cure.
Jules and Jessica argue frequently. Jules will not believe the rumours that Fargos Hounds have begun attacking people until he hears a scream and sees Jessica running toward his home. Fargos Hounds are attacking her and others.
They argue again and Jessica tries to leave but is attacked by the ‘guards’ and is forced to stay.
The early sections are full of references to disease, both literal and metaphorical. The very shape of the town, Ringhaven, suggests a biological cell (it has a wall round it) which electrical antibodies are protecting against intruders.
The Fargos Hounds are like mutated cells. They have stopped behaving as programmed and have become cancerous, attacking the body that sustains them.
Jules, after much soul searching, decides to follow Jessica to Eredis, although his journey is delayed some months.
Mingo’s condition deteriorates and, although Jules referred him to a more experienced Doctor, he dies.
Eredis is a mining world where Domers, huge genetically engineered humanoids, toil through the short cycle of their lives to harvest Mutacillin. Jessica, it transpires, has become obsessed with the plight of the Domers who, as artificial life-forms, are treated as slaves. Both she and the director of the operation, Guysin Hoke, have been conducting clandestine affairs with two of the Domers, although their views on the creatures are fundamentally opposed, with Guysin viewing them as tools created for a purpose. Jessica looks on them as sentient beings, despite the fact that their lifespan is only five years, after which their bodies are destroyed and the organic residue used to grow the next generation.
When Jessica becomes ill, Jules realises that she has contracted Barea’s disease. Both he and Jessica have been experiencing other people’s memories. When Jules contacts Earth for up-to-date information on the disease he discovers that there is now a cure. In the meantime Jessica is close to discovering a way of growing the delicate spores which produce mutacillin off-planet, which will mean the end of the Eredis mining operation and the end of the Domers.
Shortly afterwards, she is found dead at the bottom of a mine.
Jules turns against all he has ever believed in and – with Jessica’s memories and personality in his head, comes to the conclusion that the virus is a good thing. It allows a form of shared consciousness and, if his theory is correct, will allow the Domers to survive as individual personalities when they are destroyed and reborn.
Cradle of The Sun – Brian Stableford (1969)
‘Was the world’s last coward mankind’s final champion?
Call it soul, call it humanity, species-sentience, anything – it was missing. And not only was it gone from mankind, but from man’s ancient enemies, the rats, as well. There was no will to power, no will to live…
Both intelligent species were dying.
The task of saving the world fell to Kavan Lochlain, the last living coward. The only man who cared enough to feel fear, Kavan was afraid of everything. But this fear was going to take him to the Cradle of The Sun, because he was too scared to let anything stop him.
“I haven’t been so struck by the vivid imagery in a book since The Jewels of Aptor or The Dying Earth” – Jack Gaughan’
Blurb from the Ace Double 12140 paperback edition
Stableford is a prolific but sadly under-recognised writer who has been a major figure on the British SF scene since the 1970s.
This is an early and somewhat nihilistic piece in which Stableford takes the basic premise that in Earth’s far future, a psychoparasite has been draining the will to live from humanity and the one other sapient race on the planet, the rats.
Humanity has travelled to the stars in seedships and humans have been altered genetically to match the worlds discovered rather than terraform the planets.
It is the rats who identify the threat, which they believe to be based in Tierra Diablo, in The Cradle of The Sun, and bring it to the attention of The Librarian, the aging custodian of a vast library of knowledge.
In turn the librarian assembles an expedition consisting of a warrior, an amphibious woman, three rats, and Kalvan Lochlain, whose motivation is his own fear. The companions die one by one with a kind of Shakespearean inevitability leaving Kalvan to face the menace in The Cradle of The Sun alone.
The style is interesting, but nothing out of the ordinary. A form of bleak Romanticism laced around the Campbell quest structure. The hero sets out with his companions to seek out and destroy a powerful enemy in his lair, and meet allies and foes along the way.
It fits best, loosely, within the Science Fantasy novels of this period and has strong stylistic links with Michael Moorcock and Jack Vance.
Fairyland – Paul J McAuley (1995)
‘In the twenty-first century Europe is divided between the First World bourgeoisie, made rich by nanotechnology and the cheap slave labour of genetically engineered Dolls, and the Fourth World of refugees and the homeless, displaced by war and economic turbulence.
Alex Sharkey is trying to make his mark as a designer of psychoactive viruses in London whilst staying one step ahead of the police and Triad gangs. He finds an unlikely ally in a scary-smart but dangerous child named Milena, but his troubles really begin when he unwittingly helps Milena quicken intelligence in a Doll.
It is the first of the fairies.
Milena wants to escape forever to her own private Fairyland, but some of the Folk she has created have other ideas about where her destiny lies…’
Blurb from the 2009 Gollancz paperback edition.
Somewhat Michael Swanwick-ish in style, McAuley takes us on a real trip through a near future Europe. Alex, a slightly stereotyped fat geek, designs and deals in hallucinatory viruses and is seriously in debt to Billy Rock, the local villain. Billy has a job for Alex, and it includes a young prodigy called Milena.
In this world, genetically engineered humanoids called Dolls are manufactured to be used as cheap labour and fashionable pets.. Rock has subverted this to create fighting dolls in a venture called The Killing Fields.
Rock wants Alex and Milena to work together to change the Dolls’ DNA so that he will be able to breed them. Milena, however, has other ideas and uses the research to raise a Doll’s intelligence to sapience, and creates the first of The Fairies.
The narrative jumps forward to where Alex is travelling Europe, searching for Milena. Disneyworld is controlled by fairies and reality itself is being subverted by virus attacks which can change one’s moods, beliefs or memories. Alex herself believes that Milena has infected him with some viral love potion which has caused him to follow her across Europe.
In the meantime Milena, herself originally a product of company research has become The Fairy Queen, an amoral monarch whose subjects have been killing young girls for their ovaries in order to raise changelings among themselves or, as Milena explains, harvesting the ovaries of their own experiments which they planted among humans.
McAuley’s attempt to turn myth into reality works remarkably well. Our original Celtic stories of The Fair Folk show them to be wilful, amoral and often cruel and illogical creatures who would trap people in time or replace their babies with fairy babies (another concept used in this novel)
There are no doubt other parallels which will be more obvious to others.
Needle – Hal Clement (1950)
‘The two ships raced in from outer space and crashed head-on into the Pacific Ocean.
One carried: THE HUNTER
The other: HIS QUARRY
corrupt, evil, a criminal from an unearthly civilisation light years away.
Both were unable to exist alone – both needed a ‘host’. a human body which they could invade and control…’
Blurb from the 1963 Corgi paperback edition
A gelatinous alien detective in pursuit of a gelatinous alien criminal crashes in earth’s sea just off the coast of a US island. The aliens are symbiotic by nature and would normally live within the body of a willing host, siphoning off some food and oxygen while helping to fight off disease and repair injuries.
The detective manages to invade the body of a teenage boy and realises he will have to communicate with his host in order to track down his prey, who is presumably concealed in another human body.
The boy is persuaded, once the alien has been able to make contact, to help track down the criminal and the two enlist the help of the local doctor to try and determine, by a process of deduction and elimination, where the alien might be hiding.
It’s a short and very satisfying read; a bit of a juvenile wish-fulfilment fantasy, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
There are some points of interest. Clement has set this tale in a near-future where bacteria have been genetically engineered to produce a clean form of crude oil. Much of the action is set in and around the oil refinery on the island where the boy’s father works.
Cowl – Neal Asher (2004)
‘In the fourth millennium, the Heliothane Dominion rules triumphant in the solar system. But some of its enemies have escaped into the past, where they are still capable of wreaking havoc across time. By far the worst of them is Cowl, an artificially forced advance in human evolution – more vicious than any prehistoric beast.
Innocently embroiled in this galactic conflict and fleeing for her life, Polly finds herself dragged back through time, era by era… towards the very dawning of life on Earth. meanwhile, her relentless pursuer, Tack, discovers that the ‘tor’ fragment imbedded in his wrist is of crucial value to the mysterious Heliothane – a truth that is soon brought home to him with bloody abruptness. As a twenty-second-century, vat-grown, programmable killer employed by U-gov, he is no stranger to violence, but his harrowing journey into the Heliothane’s lethal universe is only just beginning…
All the while the torbeast, Cowl’s pet, is growing vast and dangerous and shedding its scales wherever its master orders. Scales that are themselves organic time machines designed for bringing human samples from all ages back to Cowl.
Then the beast can feed…’
Blurb from the 2004 Pan Macmillan Tor paperback edition.
Abandoning his Polity universe temporarily Asher takes us on a trip forward and back through time.
In the far future the Heliothane and the Umbrathane are at war. A human genetic experiment, Cowl, has travelled back through time in order to make his own genetic pattern the dominant one in the possible futures he will create by travelling back to the dawn of multi-cellular life.
In the nearer future, Nandru, a soldier, has encountered a monster and somehow obtained a scale from its hide. Knowing that the authorities are after him he drugs a young prostitute, Polly, and provides her with an implanted AI called a Muse. The monster is Cowl’s creature which is feeding on life in various timelines. The scale, which Polly picks up and which binds to her arm, is a tor, a one-way time-machine which will take the bearer back to Cowl at the Nodus, the beginnings of life on earth.
Tack, a cloned and programmed assassin, is sent to retrieve the tor and although he manages to kill Nandru, Polly’s tor jumps her into the past. Nandru, in dying, managed to upload his memories into the Muse and can converse with her.
Tack has also been infected with a tor, and is kidnapped and reprogrammed by the Heliothane to be sent back in time to kill Cowl.
If that isn’t complicated enough, things get far more complex and the main characters all get embroiled in the machinations of Cowl, the Heliothane, the Umbrathane and Cowl’s sister, Aconite.
It’s a fast-paced, page-turning yarn, but not much else. One’s belief is stretched by Polly managing to bump into both Henry VIII and the Emperor Claudius while time-hopping. Also, Nandru – who seemed quite happy to have Polly killed at the start of the novel – is a far different kettle of fish when he’s an AI, and is friendly toward her.
Similarly, Tack does a complete U-turn when he is eventually released from his programming.
The question one has to ask – given that this is a stand alone novel by Asher separate from his Polity novels – is whether this is trying to say anything.
Perhaps there was a lost opportunity in not examining more deeply what an evolved human may become.
Certainly there are points raised as to whether – in our contemporary global society – we are weakening the race by keeping our weakest members alive, producing stronger antibiotics and therefore creating drug-resistant diseases.
Cowl is a survivor, a ruthless sociopath. Perhaps, in order to survive, this is what humanity needs to turn into.
Asher does not go far enough in examining the choices we need to make as a species. Can we be both strong and compassionate? Does one automatically preclude the other? Being strong as a race we would need to make difficult choices about our weaker members; those who cannot contribute fully. Should they be allowed to have children themselves? These are areas Asher could have examined more intensively, while at the same time showing us a little more of the personality of Cowl who ultimately comes across more as the movie monster hissing alien rather than the hyper-intelligent evolved human that he is supposed to be.
Green Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson (1993)
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‘Mars. the green planet.
Man’s dream of a new world is underway, but corrupted. The First Hundred have scattered or died, the rebels are underground, planning the utopia, waiting. The transnational corporations aided by the UN are rebuilding the ruined cities and mining valuable resources. They too have a dream. Mars can be plundered, cultivated and terraformed to suit Man’s needs – frozen lakes are forming, lichen is growing, the atmosphere is slowly becoming breathable. but most importantly, Mars can be owned. On Earth, countries are being bought and sold by the transnationals. Why not here too? Man’s dream is underway, but so is his greatest test. Societies are crumbling and re-forming, adapting and reacting to new conditions. The survivors of the First Hundred know that technology alone is not enough. Trust and co-operation are needed to create a new world – but these qualities are as thin on the ground as the Martian air they breathe.’
Blurb from the 1994 HarperCollins paperback edition.
Robinson continues his sublime depiction of the colonisation of Mars in the second volume of the trilogy which looks at events on Mars from thirty years on from the abortive rebellion of 2061 to 2127.
The First Hundred are missing, dead or in hiding while – almost unnoticed by the Earthborn protagonists – a Martian culture is already developing. Nirgal, the vat-born son of Hiroko and Coyote is a central thread of this book, about which other characters weave their own tales.
Earth is now in the control of several Metanational Corporations, businesses big enough to buy and sell entire countries. The metanats have created a new space-elevator to replace the one destroyed in ‘the Unrest of ‘61’ and terraforming efforts have gone far enough to allow grass and small flowers to grow on the surface in some areas.
However, Earth’s situation is worsening. Although everyone has the right to the longevity treatment there are still many people waiting for their first treatment. The population is rising and tensions are high between metanats and between nations.
One metanat, praxis, appears to be sympathetic to the Martian natives and sends an agent, Art, to meet and live amongst the Martian underground.
Art in turn becomes a friend of Nirgal and they are instrumental in arranging a conference of the disparate Martian Underground factors at Dorsa Brevia – the interior of a vast empty larval tunnel – out of which is produced the first Martian constitution. This in turn leads – with a kind of predestinate inevitability – to a more organised and more successful revolution.
This is the bare bones of the narrative, but fleshing out the full 780 pages is a novel which not only raises serious questions about society and its obligation to the planet on which it is based, but describes a detailed and attractive society, committed through force of circumstance to living in harmony with its world.
Robinson is at his best when he is in full flight in creating alternate societies and exploring the possibilities of social engineering. In one scene, where Art is in a workshop being run by Praxis owner and magnate, William Fort, it is suggested that population control could be achieved by allowing each citizen the right to three-quarters of a child. Thus, each couple could have one child and would be able to sell the right to the remaining half or buy a half from another couple in order to have a second child. Robinson briefly extrapolates some of the consequences before moving on, but this is only one of the extraordinary (sometimes throwaway) and inventive ideas with which the book is littered.
Robinson also introduces the novel concept of ecotage, in which the protagonists employ the unique and changing Martian meteorological phenomena as weapons.
Coyote at one point manipulates a local wind phenomenon in order to break into a high security compound to rescue Sax, who is being tortured and interrogated.
Later, Sax himself exploits the high amount of oxygen in a strategic canyon and sets fire to flammable trees (trees which incidentally need to be set alight in order for their seeds to be released) as a similar revolutionary tactic.
The environment is also employed in a constructive way such as when Hiroko and her hidden group live under domes made of mesh covered with ice, providing a strong but temporary airtight enclosure under which flora and fauna thrive.
In terms of laws Green Mars suffers slightly from three rather convenient events late on in the storyline. On Earth, the collapse of the West Antarctic shelf creates chaos allowing the Martians time to organise their revolt. An enormous water ice deposit is discovered beneath the Martian crust which, when pumped out, will be enough to form Martian oceans, and from seemingly nowhere a bacteria appears which releases large amounts of oxygen into the Martian atmosphere.
The character of Hiroko – particularly in this book – is perhaps a little too mysterious and messianic, especially when she appears at gatherings and makes speeches in her self-appointed role of ‘Earth Mother/Mars Mother’.
Once more however, the central character is Mars itself, a gorgeously described fresh new world which seems so real on the page that one might also imagine one had been there.
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Black Milk – Robert Reed (1989)
‘In a future both idyllic and hi-tech, Ryder is the leader of a very special group of children. In their different ways, they are all highly specialised; in Ryder’s case, he has an eidetic memory and hyperacute senses, thanks to genetic engineering. And thanks to Dr Florida.
Genius, super-scientist and philanthropist, Dr Florida everyone’s favourite grandfather; but, as Ryder’s story unfolds, Florida is seen against the long-term effects of his work, which are not always as foreseen. this is the case with sparkhounds, a new species of creature intended to colonise planets which are presently dangerous to humans and make them liveable. Instead, the ‘hounds revolt and attempt to take over Earth. Ryder, his parents, his friends and Dr Florida himself have to make impossible decisions in the chaos that follows, and thus they all learn more about themselves.’
Blurb from the 1990 Orbit paperback edition.
Sometime in the near future the tailoring of children’s genes has become commonplace. In Central America, a group of gene-tailored children meet, bond and together build a well-defended tree house in a large oak-tree.
The central figure, Ryder, has an unexpected talent in his ‘refined’ genes in that he has an eidetic memory so perfect that at times he goes into trances while reliving past events.
Marshall has been given additional intelligence but is still made to feel inadequate by his mother’s need for perfection, which is why he has to win at everything.
Jack, the only tailored child in his family, has more modest improvements and spends his time catching and studying snakes.
Beth is of Indian descent and sings beautifully while Cody has been tailored after her Lesbian mothers’ wishes to compete with men on their own terms. She is strong, practical and has a perfect aim.
The mastermind behind these advances is Dr Florida, ‘Father of the World’; a genetic scientist whose team is also dabbling in the manipulation of animal genes. Every year Dr Florida visits some part of the world and release new creatures, and their capture by the local children elicits rewards. This year Dr Florida visits Ryder’s area and releases a white, furred four-legged snake which he calls a snow dragon; something which Jack and Marshall are determined to capture. Dr Florida, however, appears to have ulterior motives and invites the children to spend a holiday with him.
Some time later, news breaks regarding ‘the moon’s moon’; a comet which Dr Florida’s company has placed in orbit around the partly-colonised moon, and which is being mined for water and organics. It appears that Dr Florida is a man obsessed with bringing life to the sterile wastes of the Universe. He has secretly created a species he calls ‘sparkhounds’ within the comet which were designed to populate the upper atmosphere of gas giants.
They are large armoured winged creatures with the faces of bulldogs and a stinging tail. They absorb electricity and have organic batteries built into their bodies. They create floating nests from any available organics and are naturally ferocious and territorial. Now some of them have escaped, killed the staff of the comet and are breeding and building new nests.
Many of Reed’s novels are oddly structured, taking a diversion midway through the narrative, and this is an example.
Most of the first half is taken up with Ryder and his eidetic memory of how his group of children came together, and his relationship with the strange Dr Florida.
It would appear that Dr Florida has plans for the ‘team’ of children he was so impressed with, but it is not made clear exactly what those plans were. When it is though that the world might be invaded by sparkhounds, he plans to evacuate several hundred gene-tailored children on an ark constructed from an asteroid, but this never transpires. It is suggested that Florida engineered (no pun intended) the escape of the ‘hounds in order to launch the ark and bring life to some other part of the Solar System, or the galaxy, and because of the destruction of the ‘hounds was thwarted in his plan.
So what is the novel all about? One can possibly see Dr Florida as a metaphor for God; ‘Father of the World’; the giver of life. Certainly he is ultimately enigmatic and unknowable. The snow dragon highlights the children’s differences. Marshall is desperate to trap it for gain and the approval of his ghastly mother. Jack seems to want to study it, while Ryder thinks it should be left alone to live out its life. The girls seem indifferent to the creature.
Overall the novel is highly unsatisfactory since Reed fails to move out of the pastoral idyll he has created for his children. The denouement in which the ‘hounds are destroyed ‘off-page’ leaves one with a sense of anti-climax. One feels that a far more dramatic solution would have been to have the children board the asteroid ark and then for Ryder to have his internal debate about the motives of Dr Florida, a man established as complex and enigmatic but sadly burdened with some very bad dialogue.
Reed tidies up the loose ends by shooting years ahead to an adult Ryder, looking back on what had happened to his friends since the Sparkhound Crisis.
Reed’s recurrent motif of the adolescent boy in small-town America perhaps begins here, but this is his least satisfying work and reads like something hurriedly finished. There is, however, a Simak-esque poignancy to it, and one cannot help but be reminded of Simak’s tales of the idyllic West passing away while at the same time having alien creatures roaming the countryside.
The Battle of Forever – AE van Vogt (1971)
‘”What a noble and handsome head, and delightful tapering body. The tiny arms and legs…” This was Man, retreating from the world behind the barrier for several thousand years. The chosen few lived a life of peace, of philosophical contemplation. Outside were the animal-men, biologically created from the beasts that used to roam the earth. Their lives were perfectly regulated by computers, crime-free and idyllic.
But when Modyun agreed to grow his body large to experience once again those degrading bodily functions, and to go beyond the barrier … the battle for existence had already begun. If only he could discover the cause and the purpose. But his questioning mind only led him deeper into darkness, deeper into uncertainty.’
Blurb from the 1971 NEL paperback edition
Modyun is an evolved human of the far future, living a life of philosophical contemplation behind ‘the barrier’ with the remnants of the human race, reduced to existing as a great head with a tiny body.
Modyun (and one of the evolved females) is persuaded (for reasons which are not important) to reassume a full human body, complete with archaic bodily functions and go outside the barrier to discover what is happening with Earth.
One can only conclude that the blurb for this novel was necessarily vague because the storyline is convoluted to the point of non-comprehensibility.
He discovers that the animals of Earth have been turned into animal men and are being drafted into an army to fight a war by aliens who have, at the same time, ensured that Mankind has been weakened by sealing themselves off behind the barrier.
Modyun passes himself off as an ape and joins his new animal friends as they board the alien transport ship to fight in the alien war. Modyun – a later incarnation of van Vogt’s ‘logical hero’ eventually confronts his enemy and saves the day.
This is late, and weak, work by van Vogt with little to recommend it as even ‘experimental’ fiction.
The Windup Girl – Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)
This novel was nominated for various awards, possibly justly so. Set in a Thailand in a world experiencing the consequences of a genetic-modification disaster, the novel revolves around several characters, many of whom appear to be living double lives.
Viruses such as blister-rust have wiped out much cultivated vegetation and fruits, and genetic records of the pre-disaster species are highly sought after.
Anderson Lake is ostensibly in Thailand managing a business designing and producing algae-based biological storage batteries (kink springs) although his purpose is to discover hidden gene banks, the existence of which becomes obvious when he finds pre-disaster blister-rust-free fruits for sale in local markets.
Emiko is one of the ‘new humans’; a sterile lab-created woman designed to walk like a clockwork toy and trained to give pleasure to her owners. Finding it cheaper to buy a new ‘Windup girl’ than transport her back when he returned to Japan, her owner abandoned her in Thailand, where she was kept in a whorehouse as an exclusive treat for special customers.
Anderson Lake becomes fascinated with her, and tells her of a village in the mountains where ‘New People’ live freely.
Meanwhile, Anderson’s manager, Hock Seng, is trying to get his hands on the blueprints of Anderson’s kink-spring design to sell to a local crime boss.
In the background a slow war is being waged between those who wish to relax the trade restrictions set in place to keep any further genetic mutations at bay, and the White Shirts who act as a kind of rogue customs department. Captain Jaidee Rojjanasukchai, the Tiger of Bangkok, is the foremost of these.
There is an odd steampunk flavour to this which, as described in some circles, is biopunk. The kink-spring factory, for instance, is run like some monstrous Heath-Robinson machine with megodonts (genetically re-created primeval beasties) are harnessed to giant wheels in order to provide power for the factory to run.
The novel very cleverly postulates a future volatile political situation and how the balance of power shifts unaccountably following a random action of the Windup Girl which may have been as a direct result of Anderson’s mention of New people living free.
One cannot fault the writing, the characters and the detailed portrait of a future Thailand but the overall political situation was never clear, and one is left wondering what the relationship is between The White shirts, the Military, the Thai Monarchy and the Trade organisations which distracts from the enjoyment of the novel as a whole.
Startide Rising – David Brin (1982)
‘The Terran exploration vessel ‘Streaker’ has crashed on the uncharted water-world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in Galactic History. Above, in space, armadas of alien races clash in a titanic struggle to claim her. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret – the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.’
Blurb from the 1985 Bantam paperback edition
We are still within Brin’s Uplift Universe, although Brin employs a completely different cast for this sequel. the events of ‘Sundiver’ are referred to briefly, and Jacob Demwa is mentioned in passing.
‘The Streaker’ An Earth vessel, crewed (as an experiment) by ‘uplifted’ dolphins, some humans and a chimpanzee scientist has stumbled upon an abandoned fleet of starships, each the size of a moon, held in stasis for immeasurable aeons.
the dolphins make the fatal mistake of sending a message back to Earth which is intercepted by various galactic factions, some of whom have beliefs that the Progenitors (i.e. the first intelligent race in the five galaxies) are asleep and will one day return to rid the cosmos of unbelievers. Thus, the Streaker is pursued through space by fanatical bands of aliens with various agendae.
Hiding out on the water planet of Kithrup, the Earthlings have a short breathing space while the aliens fight each other for the right to claim the prize.
They are not yet aware that ‘Streaker’ carries back a corpse from one of the ships, a humanoid alien which the portable Galactic Library cannot identify as any recorded intelligent species.
Meanwhile, the human Professor Metz, who is part of the dolphin Uplift programme has brought some of his ‘special’ dolphins aboard, dolphins which seem to be larger and more aggressive than dolphins should normally be.
Also, the planet Kithrup itself presents mysteries since not only does it hold a promising pre-sentient race but appears to be fostering a gestalt intelligence in its metal-rich oceans.
This is probably the most satisfying of the Uplift novels, being a reasonable length and giving equal weight to characterisation and action. After this the books become larger, denser and generally more unwieldy, although they are not without their individual charm and page-turning addictive quality.
Blood Music – Greg Bear (1985)
Bear is at his best when he balances the science and the story so that they both support and complement each other. He often goes further and takes us into realms of possibility that are exciting and terrifying in equal measure. What would happen if someone created a virus that could learn and become exponentially intelligent as its numbers increased?
The plot is simple. A brilliant but eccentric scientist working at a genetic engineering installation is doing secret research of his own, which is discovered. Told to destroy it he injects himself with his research in order to smuggle it out of the lab.
From there it is a beautifully executed examination of the consequences.
Bear structures the novel into three stages of infection. Initially the noocytes (as they are termed) remodel the scientist, making him exercise more and eat less, changing his metabolism. He meets a woman and embarks on a short-lived affair. By now, the noocytes are loose in the world.
The scientist has a theory, which is not really explored as much as it should have been, that the research was not all his but that some Gaea-esque force of nature was pushing toward his noocyte research.
People then start disappearing. Piles of clothes are found, and odd biological anomalies and structures appear.
By the third section of the novel, the noocytes have completely assimilated North America, while quarantine-crazy polices in the rest of the world see nuclear warheads aimed at Germany who have on infected refugee locked into as safe an isolation area as possible for study as he transforms.
One could argue that Bear is exploiting the ignorant fear that many peiople feel with regard to genetic engineering.
In the intervening years since ‘Blood Music’ was published, that fear has not diminished. It links in to a primal ingrained fear of disease and contagion which was at its height at the time of publication when the spectre of AIDS was hanging over the world.
There is almost an echo of Wyndham here, whose view appeared to be that Humanity is laughingly arrogant to consider itself the pinnacle of creation, or evolution (dependent on the set of beliefs to which one subscribes) since a successful species only needs a momentary advantage and we are thrown to the next rung down in the food chain. Change is inevitable. Evolution demands it. This is Bear’s message.
Dawn – Xenogenesis I – Octavia E Butler (1987)
‘Lilith Iyapo is in the remote Andes, mourning the death of her husband and son, when nuclear war destroys the world. Centuries later, she revives, held captive aboard a starship.
Miraculously powerful and hideously grotesque galactic beings, the Oankali, have rescued the planet and the war’s victims out an irresistible need to heal and a greater need to change all they touch. For the Oankali survive by merging genetically with primitive peoples – without their permission.
Lilith’s children will inherit the Earth and stars, but they will be more – and other – than human.’
Blurb to the 1997 Aspect (Warner Books) paperback edition.
Butler here moves away from her millennia-spanning history of the Patternists and Clayarks to a new trilogy, again exploring themes of possession and control, involving in this case threats to the genetic integrity of the human race.
The Oankali, a starfaring gene-trading race, have rescued the few survivors of world-wide nuclear war. In return for their lives, the rescued are expected to trade their genes with the Oankali, becoming the parents of a hybrid race due to inherit a healed and revitalised Earth. As in other of her novels, Butler creates complex moral issues for which there are no easy solutions.
Lilith, despite the kind attentions of the Oankali, is conscious that she is little more than the property of the aliens, even to the extent that they have retained a ‘print’ of her entire genetic structure and may, a thousand years hence, recreate her to be brought up as an Oankali, further adding to their gallimaufry genetic mix.
She is allowed certain freedoms, but only within the terms proscribed by her captors, as when one day, desperate for sight of someone human, she decides to go to the next ‘village’ in order to try and find one:-
‘…if they met and spoke and all went well, the Oankali might decide to punish her. Solitary confinement again? Suspended animation? Or just closer confinement with Nikanj and its family? If they did either of the first two she would be simply relieved of a responsibility she did not want and could not possibly handle. If they did the third, what difference would it really make? What difference balanced against the chance to see and speak with one of her own kind again, finally?
None at all.’
Cleverly, the Oankali ship (a vast living organism which supplies all the race’s needs) is portrayed as a beautiful and seductive place, and even the reader is tempted to find the prospect of life with the Oankali – masters of psychological as well as genetic manipulation – somewhat attractive.
Lilith is genetically altered, firstly without her knowledge to rid her body of a cancer-producing gene, and later – unwillingly – to enhance her memory and implant scent-glands which give her a limited control of the doors within her home. By now, however, she has been bonded with a young Ooloi – the ruling neuter sex of the tri-sexual aliens – and is destined to become part of its family.
There is an understated attitude of contempt on the part of the Oankali for Humanity. They see Humanity as a dangerously tangled mix of genes, two traits of which (our intelligence and a genetic predisposition toward hierarchical systems) have convinced them to label Humanity as a destructive race. They have encountered other intelligent species who have committed racial suicide and long ago decided on a policy of non-interference until after the event, when they would feel free to mop up the genetic remains.
Lilith and the other humans (who are for the most part kept apart) are denied writing materials, an action which carries overtones of cult indoctrination, with the subjects isolated and gradually acclimated to the presence of the grotesque aliens. This turns out to be an extended process of seduction and superficially seems to be a metaphor for one race’s control of another, but things are far more complex than that.
The novel is about Lilith more than anyone else, a young Afro-American widow, mourning the death of her son and husband, who has challenge after challenge thrown at her and somehow manages to keep her personal integrity intact.
It’s also a novel about lack of understanding and communication, not merely between species, but between individuals of the same species. Although we, like the humans in the novel, tend to see the Oankali as arrogant superior creatures, we are judging them on human terms.
Near the end of the novel, Lilith’s Ooloi ‘mate’ Nikanj, attempts to let her experience a flash of ‘its’ thought processes. She can understand very little of the experience, but for a sense of illusive profundity.
Lilith is told that she is to take charge of a group of forty awakened humans, who, along with their Oankali partners, are to form the nucleus of a new Earth settlement. Just as the humans fail to understand the Oankali, the Oankali fail to understand human nature, and miscalculate the human capacity for rebellion and violence.
There are deaths within the human group which affect the Oankali possibly more deeply than their human counterparts.
Butler has been so skilful in creating a book that is in no way a tale of ‘humans versus aliens’ that one could argue the justification of the Oankali’s actions. But then nothing is black and white here. Profound issues of personal choice and individual free will are raised and left for the reader to ponder over.
Has Lilith been so changed by the Oankali that her basic status as a human has been compromised? Is she really making her own choices now that she is bonded to the Ooloi Nikanj who can directly stimulate her pleasure centres and produce chemically-realised illusions within her mind? How can we judge the pacifist Utopia of the Oankali against the moral bankruptcy of a planetary society which has destroyed itself?
Sequels: “Adulthood Rites” “Imago”
Death Robots From Mars 
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