Over the summer I went into a strange science fiction feeding frenzy. These are my favourite books from that time and from the rest of the year. Except for Robinson and Banks these were all from authors new to me.
1. The Immortalists - Gabriel David
2. The Quantum Thief - Hannu Rajaniemi
3. And Blue Skies From Pain - Stina Leicht
4. Redshirts - John Scalzi
5. The Killing Moon - NK Jemisin
6. Wool - Hugh Howey
7. 2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson
8. The Hydrogen Sonata - Iain M Banks
9. The Song of Achilles - Madeleine Miller
You can look up the plot synopses for yourselves, I mean why is it that I always have to do all the work around here? The Quantum Thief, I think, is the most original and intelligent of the books above and The Song of Achilles the most poetic. The Immortalists is the most perverse and Ballardian. Perhaps the most disappointing was the Kim Stanley Robinson which I reviewed at greater length here and liked it better then than now it seems. The funniest book of the year of course was Redshirts which I liked very much until the 3 long codas at the end. The one closest to my heart was probably Stina Leicht's And Blue Skies From Pain which takes in the fairy realm and Derry.
...
If you havent read science fiction for a while - perhaps since the days of Clarke, Dick and Asimov - you really are missing out. The last couple of years have seen an explosion of new voices who explore themes much more diverse and interesting than boring old space opera. Pity JG Ballard couldnt have lived to see this new crop of writers digging deep into what he liked to call "inner space". And if you still like old fashioned space opera go read the new Iain M Banks which I enjoyed and read in about 5 hours.
74 comments:
Funny you should post this; I just started reading my first sci-fi novel in quite a few years (got it for Xmas). It's called The Dervish House and it's by a writer from Belfast called Ian McDonald. I'm a quarter of the way through and so far it's bloody brilliant. It's set in 2027 in Istanbul. Here's a link to McDonald's Wikipedia page.
You're right, I haven't read much sci fi since Clarke, Dick and Asimov (there's a law firm for you, junior partner, Elison) but couple years ago I read Houllebeq's, "The Possibility of an Island," and that was pretty good.
But now I have a list, so no excuses...
Cary
I know Ian a little bit. I havent read Dervish House but I'll get to it sometime this year.
John
I like Houellebecq so I'm definitely intrigued by his scifi stuff. Thats going on my TBR pile.
apologies if I just confused everyone. I just noticed that although I was talking about The Quantum Thief I had the picture of the The Fractal Prince the sequel up on the blog. I confused myself because I got The Fractal Prince last week and read it on the ferry back from Canada. Not quite as good as the first one but not bad...
Same as you John, no sci fi recently (Ballard and Doris Lessing excepted..). Isaac Asimov's short story 'What is This Thing Called Love' (I think) sent me into paroxysms of laughter, thought it was the funniest thing ever. I was 14. I might feel differently now.
This list looks intriguing. The garden will have to be neglected a bit longer.
Deb
What dont you try Redshirts if you want a laugh. Its especially funny if you've ever seen an episode of Star Trek...
And I see Amazon has the first four chapters of Redshirts available for free.
And I see Scalzi's new novel is being serialized.
I've read approximately zilch science fiction in my life, but the opening of "Redshirts" is pretty funny. But will broad humor like that hold up over 20, 50, 200 pages?
John: Having said that I've read almost no science fiction, I do know something about some its leading authors and their personalities. Do you think Harlan Ellison would keep his mouth shut enough to be a junior anything?
Your law firm could call itself Dick, Clarke, That would get the geriatric teenagers laughing. And that reminds me that a personal injury lawyer named Justin M. Bieber has been advertising on Philadelphia buses and subways the art few years--It's the emesse, I swear.
John
And Redshirts has been optioned by Hollywood I hear too, although I think they already that movie once before. It was called Galaxy Quest and was pretty good.
Peter
"I've read approximately zilch science fiction in my life, but the opening of "Redshirts" is pretty funny. But will broad humor like that hold up over 20, 50, 200 pages?"
The short answer is no.
It gets more subtle as the book goes on. The only place where he really lost me was the ending, which through a series of unnecessary codas was way too sentimental for my taste.
Interesting that none of the blurbs on Amazon mentions the book's humor. One of the reviews, however, does indulge in the tired "If X wrote science fiction, this is the book he would write" trope.
Peter
Thats very odd. If you dont find the book funny I dont really see how you could enjoy it at all...
Well, they're one- and two-sentence blurbs. Maybe the people who put up the Amazon site don't think humor is a selling point. Jerks.
Adrian, you say, "And if you still like old fashioned space opera go read the new Iain M Banks which I enjoyed and read in about 5 hours."
Your posting, the list, and your final comment prompts me to several reactions:
(1) I lost interest in SF (science fiction and/or speculative fiction) long, long ago in a galaxy far away (my adolescence).
(2) I read so deliberately that I cannot imagine going through a book in five hours. I am envious (I think).
(3) When fantasy began to dominate the SF market, I became more and more convinced that I could not return to savoring the genre.
(4) [I hope the following does not apply to anyone here.] Why is that so many SF fans seem to get themselves lumped into such bizarre stereotypes? If you have ever seen them at one of their fan-based "conventions," you will instantly understand what I am suggesting.
(5) Now, having said all of that, which one SF would anyone recommend for someone like me who has just said all that I have said?
Peter
With this book its kind of the only selling point.
RT
Yeah there are certain books I devour rather than read! Not a particularly endearing trait I admit.
Look science fiction has gotten so diverse and interesting in the last five years that its worth taking another look at the genre.
Let me recommend 2 very different books to you:
The City and the City by China Mieville
Crash by JG Ballard
Both hybrid scifi novels. Crash is one of my favourite books of all time but half the people who read it (perhaps more than that) hate it with a passion. TheMieville is a detective story that takes place in a very strange city...
RT
That wasnt anonymous that was me.
Well, Anonymous / a.k.a. Adrian, any book that is hated by half of the readers comes with a questionable endorsement. In any case, I will--perhaps--give your two recommendations a try. For now, though, there is no SF reading on the horizon because I must give my slow-motion attentions to class planning for the new semester that begins on Monday with courses in Dramatic Literature and Script Analysis. God help the students (and me). And, as I suggested previously, you really ought to give some more thought to returning to the classroom; there is nothing like a classroom full of undergraduates to help a teacher (or writer) put things in perspective. For a writer, in particular, the classroom is filled with catalysts for new projects.
Adrian, does this prejudice against humor (You know, humor is all right, but not in, you know, sedrious books) stem from a latent belief that fiction ought to be improving?
"Fiction about to be improving?"
Peter, you are sounding a bit neoclassical here.
By coincidence, I have been putting together lessons for literary theory and criticism this afternoon, and I just finished notes for a section on the ancient Greeks.
Aristophanes in Frogs has Aeschylus argue that poets (writers) should be moral teachers, while he has Euripides argue that poets (writers) should instead point out realities (aside from moral questions). Aristotle later went on to argue that poets (writers) should not show things as they are but as they ought to be.
So, with all of that having been thrown out there, Peter and Adrian and others, do you really think that novels/fiction have the moral purpose suggested in the excerpted statement? Are you suggesting that humor cannot lead to readers' improvement? Or--here is the real question--have I pathetically misunderstood your comment, Peter?
And my bloody auto-correct feature muddies my intent. That should have been "ought to be improving."
I am saying that humor can be as effective a vehicle as any for serious intent, as Aristophanes ought to have known. I suspect, however, that at least in the U.S., there is a lingering suspicion of humor, maybe a puritan holdover. I suspect that their relative lack of humor has something to do with the seriousness with which Scandinavian crime writers are taken.
R.T., I once found in the Poetics this justification for crime fiction:
"(I)t is an instinct of human beings, from childhood, to engage in mimesis (indeed, this distinguishes them from other animals: man is the most mimetic of all, and it is through mimesis that he develops his earliest understanding); and equally natural that everyone enjoys mimetic objects. A common occurence indicates this: we enjoy contemplating the most precise images of things whose actual sight is painful to us, such as the forms of the vilest animals and of corpses. The explanation of this too is that understanding gives great pleasure not only to philosphers, but likewise to others, too ..."
And, of course, Plato was rather dismissive of mimesis. After all "imitation" in art of the "real life" imitations of the ideal forms makes art something like a bastard stepchild two or three times removed from the original, which makes it redundant and irrelevant in the worst ways.
Perhaps we need a SF time-travel adventure in which Plato is confronted by Paul Auster or Borges as they imitate the conventions of crime/detective fiction.
Or else a short story titles "Piss Off, Plato."
Scandinavians serious? Yes and no. I recall the Santa Claus in one of Indridason's novels. The visuals of the discovery scene are very funny in dark, dark ways, which is what I think Indridason intended.
Yes, but that Santa in Voices is humorous in a grim and pathetic way. And the opening with the baby and the bone at the opening of Silence of the Grave. But Arnaldur is the best of the bunch and is, therefore, a bit of an exception.
Peter, RT
One of these things that some of these books did for me was stretch my imagination into areas it hadn't gone before. That I suppose is what really good science fiction does. The problem with a lot of sci fi however is the prose which can be workmanlike at best in many cases and shockingly bad in a surprising number of others...
You can listen to Deb on the British History Podcast, here
Very knowledgeable she is too!
Worse prose in science fiction than in crime writing?
Yes much worse ...'
I wonder why that is.
I think the prose problem is very much the same problem that arises with Fifty Shades of Grey--people are reading it for something besides the prose.
I like the list. I don't read near enough of this genre, but I know that it is a very long way from space opera in many cases these days. I think that like crime fiction, people sometimes mistakenly think they know what it is, which really only means that they have a vague sense of what has gone before.
Of course, there will always be a lot of crap published too--in any genre.
Right. But why, if Adrian's right, is prose worse in science fiction than crime fiction?
Meanwhile, I am making slow, steady progress through The Man Without Qualities. Only about 1,350 pages left.
The quality of the prose probably has something to do with supply and demand issues: the readers who demand SF are not choosing against it because of prose qualities, so publishers and editors are content to provide the supply to meet the demand without worrying themselves about the prose qualities. After all, books are much like any other commodity on the market (cars, meals, medical care, films, etc.): the buyers set the standards and the seller either lower or raise their own standards in satisfaction of the buyers.
Right. But why, if Adrian's right, why is prose worse in science fiction than crime fiction?
Meanwhile, I am making slow, steady progress through The Man Without Qualities. Only about 1,350 pages left.
I think it's because many readers, at least initially, maybe not so much today, would as happily have read a technical manual on the topic at hand as something involving characters. While crime fiction, even the most cliched, depends on character, rather than gee whiz scientific information.
Seana
I suspect you've hit the nail on the head. In the book I liked most on my little list The Quantum Thief - the ideas were dazzling, the characters were ok, the prose pedestrian.
I also think that a lot of early science fiction writers were science majors who wrote blunt clunky prose rather than English majors who were at least exposed to many different forms of literature.
The Quantum Thief for example is the first novel of - I believe - a mathematics professor so he probably wasn't as exposed to as much of the twentieth century canon as say an English professor. A good editor can remove really bad howlers but cant lift an entire book.
So they're just a bunch of fuzzy-tongued poindexters?
It's more about technique and how much time you've put in studying it, like, well, almost everything.
I don't mind sci-fi putting prose and character development behind the exposition of new and exciting ideas. It's when mainstream fiction thinks clunky prose will do that I have a problem.
Peter, Seana,
Yes, I just dont think they have the time to read very widely outside their own field. 8 or 9 years for a BSC and PHD in maths or physics or whatever. When would you get to The Man Without Qualities or Ulysses or anything really that you didnt study in high school?
I believe Musil himself had an engineering degree. It's these degenrate times in which we live.
Although I think there have been a lot of literary doctors over the years, William Carlos Williams, Walker Percy to name a couple, I have been shocked from time to time to talk to a few people who were quite ably pursuing their medical or science degrees but who struck me as close to illiterate otherwise. And I don't mean that from a literay snob perspective. I mean that their minds had been so channeled towards the sciences that they knew almost zilch outside it. It had nothing to do with their minds and everything to do with their course of study. I can only hope that when they had finished their degrees they had a bit more time to broaden their frame of reference.
Peter, Seana
There are quite a few literary doctors for sure, and I reckon that takes even more of your time. But doctors do need to know about the human condition....
Good point.
Thanks for the shout Adrian!
Literature, poetry, lack of study of - yep, I agree with you folks.
Many people have an internal 'time capsule' of books and poems from their schoolday studies. This becomes clear if you look at compilations such as Britain's favourite poems (the one edited by Griff R-J) - I can't think of an equivalent for prose, sorry - not much contemporary or halfway recent work, it is all O level/ GCSE/ A level standard fare. It is all good stuff, but shows that it isn't just scientists who don't read outside of their field. It may be most people!
Perhaps we should be thankful for anyone who tries to express themselves in writing in anything other than txtspeak. I have heard tell of cvs being submitted for job applications which r all in txtspk, lol :)
Deb
I very much enjoyed your interview.
Well there are so many distractions these days I cant imagine many kids who would just sit down and read Moby Dick or Tom Jones of their own accord.
Do scientists make good writers? Sujit Saraf is bona fide rocket scientist who's written what might be a modern classic about India called The Peacock Throne. Here's an article about him from Time magazine.
Cary
In my experience Indian families - especially middle class Indian families are very different. The kids are taught English at a young age and encouraged to read English literature along side all their other subjects.
I visited a school in Kanpur once and was amazed by a class of 10 year old boys discussing Jane Eyre with big ideas and great insights.
You're right; the Indian middle-class love affair with Eng Lit is a sub-text in a lot of the Indian novels I've read. Recent Indo-Pak immigrants at my bookmobile stops are often voracious readers, especially of more traditional, "quality" literature. I think I've mentioned to you before a book set in Sri Lanka called The Sweet and Simple Kind by Yasmine Gooneratne. She lives in Australia and her novel is about the upheavals in Sri Lanka in the 1950s, but the secondary theme is the discovery by the main character of the world of books and literature. Here's my review.
Hey, I get to name drop - I did a reading at Harbourfront with Sujit Saraf and we had dinner together beforehand. As you'd expect he's as charming as he is smart.
Alas, at 750 pages The Peacock Throne still sits on my shelf unfinished. Oh well, I don't imagine he read any of my books, either... ;).
John,
Haul it off the shelf. The 750 pages absolutely fly by, and, as a bonus, you'll get a craving for Indian food. I heartily recommend the Tandoori Flame buffet on Dixie Rd in Brampton.
Sounds like a plan, Cary. Also, it's good to have it narrowed down to one restaurant in Brampton, thanks.
I was on Gerrard lest week and there's a new Irish grocery among the Indian stores. Now somewhat fitting with this blog, though closer to Declan Burke territiory, I guess, as I picked up some "Sligo sausages." felt very Harry Rigby...
Sligo sausages? Sounds worryingly like a euphemism.
Pankaj Mishra, who write for the NYRB among other things, wrote very beautifully about what reading Western novels was for him through his alter ego protagonist in The Romantics.
John, if you endeavor to finish The Peacock Throne, I will endeavor to read A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, an equally long novel which Adrian has frequently recommended here.
And the last two of your Toronto novels are already in my plans for this year.
Unfortunately, Deb, I have received examples every day for the past twenty-three years of just how much good prose matters.
As for readers and writers of English in India, I was in touch for a while with a few English-language bloggers there. I was constantly and pleasantly surprised how elegant and precise their prose was, a pleasure to read.
Seana, I can vouch for 'A Suitable Boy' - I didn't want it to end.
Peter - yep, prose matters - young folks realise too late, methinks.
Adrian, John - I have finally downloaded the free sample of Redshirts - buggering around with synchronising my kindle and my kindle app on my ipad - aargh! - but lucky to have such technology. I know!
Deb, I love Vikram Seth, so I'm almost positive I'll like it. It's merely the length that has put me off. But as we all know, a long good book is infinitely better than a lot of mediocre short books, so it's faulty reasoning on my part not to take it up.
Deb, I work on a newspaper copy desk. I daresay I know more than most how little prose matters. If young folks realize too late that good prose matters, the people who made the decisions based on a belief that it does not matter will be safely retired on fat pensions or on sinecure journalism professorships ever to be held to account.
Peter, Deb, et al . . . The issue of whether or not quality prose matters any more can be illustrated by an example from academia. My colleagues in the English Department (at a southern U.S. university) insist as a matter of pedagogical policy that English composition be graded using holistic standards; this means that quality and correctness of prose are subordinated to "good ideas thoughtfully expressed." I have led my own minor revolt against such a revolting pedagogy by refusing to teach English composition courses; instead I wage a lonely battle on behalf of quality writing in literature and drama courses, and students seem shocked when I insist that their written assignment be done in language that is correct and clear. So, the fight goes on beyond the newspaper copy editor's desk!
At my newspaper, the copy desk has long been treated with benign neglect--benign, that is, until the screws started tightening on our company and our industry. The resulting personnel decisions by the former reporters who have run the newsroom have been thoroughly predictable.
But the dismissals were only the latest on a conspiracy of long standing against good writing. For one thing, copy editors used to have to take a lengthy test and go through a weeklong tryout before being hired (back when we used to hire copy editors, that is.) There was no similar requirement for reporters.
Forgive me if you'v e read this before, but I well remember the night I figured out my place in this newspaper's universe. I was proofreading stories in the sports department, and I came across one that said the local football team's quarterback had "shattered his knee." The trouble was that he had torn a ligament. Ripped, shredded or tore up might have worked, but shattered was plainly the wrong word to describe a tearing injury.
I pointed this out to the night sports editor, who looked at me as if I were from Mars. A reporter standing nearby added helpfully, "It's a matter of semantics." Well, yes, it was a matter of semantics – a matter of meaning, a matter of figuring out what you intend to say, then using the right word to say it. I don't remember if anyone corrected the mistake, but the night sports editor eventually enjoyed a career full of promotions ever higher into management, and the reporter eventually was rewarded with a major beat. As for good, crisp, accurate prose, the people who count have always agreed with the eye-rolling reporter: it's a matter of semantics, in the dismissive sense of the word.
Adrian, Just read Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, picked purely because of your comments about it. What a book! He is a superb writer and deals with complex social issues in a sophisticated way.
I particularly liked his ambivalence over the status of 'yoking' over whether it amounted to mugging, as well as its racial dimension. It summed up the subtly of the book. He discusses this at greater length here: http://www.jonathanlethem.com/yolked.html
Cheers,
Alan
Peter, RT
I'd love to be the voice of contrariness and claim that actually the "kids are alright" and things arent as bad as they seem...but actually I think things are bad as they seem. Worse maybe.
Dont forget to blame the editors as well as the copyeditors, they are the ones who ultimately are responsible and they dont seem to give a shit.
Alan
I am SO pleased that I got you reading one of my favourite books of the last couple of years. I thought the ending was beautiful and yes the whole yoking thing was so well done.
I liked that scene where the old white lady wants to save him from a potential mugging and the whole situation is delineated so carefully and wonderfully.
Confession time!
I thought I would get around to reading some more of your books, Adrian, so I made my trek to the library and picked up a copy of Fifty Grand. (Yeah, I should have bought the copy, but you'll see that I might be forgiven when you read the rest of this.)
Then, after about fifteen or twenty pages, a dim light went off in the aging brain (i.e., the one that is one the verges of senility). Damn, I thought, I have read something like this before. So, digging around in my deteriorating memory, I remembered this:
http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.asp?bookid=11033
Yes, I had read and reviewed your book quite a while ago.
Well, the bottom line of this short tale is this: Gawd, I think I am in the throes of Alzheimer's. But, I look at it this way: I will soon only need one or two books in my house, and I can keep re-reading them without ever knowing that I had read them before.
Finally, damn, Fifty Grand was pretty good! I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to telling you.
Nope, I blame the publishers and high-level editors. They are the ones who let shoddy product onto the shelves. Strangely enough, the one commenter who has disagreed with me on this--she blames authors-- is herself an author (and a former professor).
As for things being worse, I have read, albeit at third hand, that Steve Jobs once said reading was said. Don't get me started on Steve Jobs. What makes today's Apple-worshipping hipsters think that a big, manipulative corporation is any less big and manipulative just because its CEO wore a black turtleneck rather than a three-piece suit?
Reading was said?
As for me, I blame everybody.
Once said reading was DEAD. I blame the auto-correct feature--on this Apple computer of mine.
I blame everybody, too. Trouble is, the idiots are in charge.
RT
You should try one of the new ones, they're my best work.
Peter, Seana
If editors dont enforce quality no one will. Copyeditors can fight a heroic rear guard action but the editor is the general.
I'd say that if most readers don't really care, then editors won't either. Hence, everybody.
And I will, Adrian. I certainly will. So I will remain your belated if somewhat addled reader. Perhaps I will buy only your latest book, and I will simply read it over and over again. Given my mental fog, it will be a new experience each time. Well, actually I will get and read the others. I'm just having a bit of self-bashing because of my 50G experience in the library yesterday. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise: getting older can really suck some times!
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