William Gibson’s 2014 novel presents a world where time travel exists, but only digital information can be exchanged. Someone from our near future witnesses a murder from a world years in a future she won’t see, a fact which pulls several characters from the periphery into the roiling center of world-changing events.
And performance art.
Twenty years after the end of air travel, the caravans of the Traveling Symphony moved slowly under a white-hot sky… They were near Lake Michigan, but they couldn’t see it from here. Trees pressed in close at the sides of the road and erupted through cracks in the pavement, saplings bending under the caravans and soft leaves brushing the legs of horses and Symphony alike. The heat wave had persisted for a relentless week. (35)
Emily St. John Mandel’s early novels have caught the attention of literary readers. Her most recent work was shortlisted for the National Book Awards; it should be nominated for the Hugo and Nebula as well. Her literary approach to the post-apocalyptic begins on a winter night during a performance of King Lear at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. An aging Hollywood actor returns to the live stage, only to die— not figuratively— before his audience.
Most of the human race will follow.
Hard science fiction, often set in the terrifically-near future, explores the impact of hard science and plausible technology on all-too-human characters. This new anthology, edited by Ben Bova and Eric Choi, presents seventeen diverse stories, with technology we may well live to see, and themes as old as our species.
When I had been a single ancillary, one human body among thousands, part of the ship Justice of Toren, I had never been alone. I had always been surrounded by myself, and the rest of myself had always known if any particular body needed something—rest, food, touch, reassurance. An ancillary body might feel momentarily overwhelmed, or irritable, or any emotion one might think of—it was only natural, bodies felt things. But it was so very small, when it was just one segment among the others, when, even in the grip of strong emotion or physical discomfort, that segment knew it was only one of many, knew the rest of itself was there to help.
The expectations couldn’t be higher for Ann Leckie’s second novel and, while it makes for an interesting read, it does not live up to the promise of its predecessor. An extraordinary book awaits, based on what this one establishes and suggests.
The dream will try again (93)
A serial killer who imagines himself an artist stalks the apocalyptic landscape of contemporary Detroit, where “Everything is choked with weeds and graffiti,” and “Broken bricks and concrete pillars [are] holding up the sky” (99). Unsurprisingly, he feels some eldritch force guides his deadly art. Surprisingly– as several characters whose stories converge on the investigation learn—- that eldritch force might actually exist.
Pulp conventions and comic-book tropes coexist with a quasi-realistic setting and political questions both timeless and contemporary, as a good man on a doomed island becomes a hero in order to impress his surrogate son— and encounters something more dangerous than he anticipated.
That was also the night the dreams began (86).
Caitlin R. Kiernan, paleontologist and author, has penned prose fiction and graphic novels that have garnered her awards and recognition in fields of literary, horror, and SF/fantasy. Her fans include Peter Straub, Kathe Koja, and Neil Gaiman. Of her nine novels (thus far), none have matched the wave generated by her beguiling, genre-defying 2012 masterpiece, the story of a schizophrenic woman investigating her own haunting.
“There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.”
Gillian Flynn, journalist turned mystery writer, has made a name for herself with well-wrought thrillers. Compared with the average mystery, her work features deeper thematic and social concerns, memorable characters—and wildly far-fetched solutions. Gone Girl, her most successful novel to date, contains all of these characteristics. It has sold spectacularly well, provoked debate, and has become a major motion picture, in theatres next weekend.
Is the novel worth reading? Will the movie be worth your time?
(and Zombies of the Gene Pool)
Sharyn McCrumb is best known for the Ballad Novels, historical Appalacian stories that touch on the folkloric and mythic, and the Elizabeth MacPherson Novels, mysteries that involve an amateur detective. She won the Edgar Award back in 1988, however, for a tongue-in-check mystery set at an SF convention. Bimbos of the Death Sun retains a significant following, as does its 1992 sequel, Zombies of the Gene Pool. Fen have had mixed reactions—but these twisted tales make for amusing summer reading.
Sometimes she knew with solid certainty that she had four children, and five more stillbirths: nine times giving birth in floods of blood and pain, and of those, four surviving. At other times she knew equally well that she had two children, both born by caesarian section late in her life after she had given up hope. Two children of her body, and another, a stepchild, dearest of all. When any of them visited she knew them, knew how many there were, and the other knowledge felt like a dream (11)
A woman’s decision sets her life on two separate paths, and she appears to recall both in old age. Is one real? Are both? Is it better to find personal happiness in a hostile world, or a less satisfying life in a happier world? Does the acceptance of a lover’s proposal in Britain set off an assassination in Dallas? Award-winning author Jo Walton’s most recent novel quietly explores these questions.
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