Annihilation is the last of the Nebula nominated novels I am reading this year, and the first of the World Fantasy Award nominees. Vandermeer also wrote Finch, which was nominated for an award for 2009.
What they have in common is a fascination with fungus. Finch features fungal aliens wielding fungus tech, something I had not seen before. Annihilation is more straightforward horror--fungus is always a good supporting cast member in a horror story. I would also say that Annihilation is a more accessible book than his earlier work.
Annihilation is the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy. The stage is set here for a fungal alien invasion--the Southern Reach is a governmental organization trying to cope with the issue of Area X, a place where civilization has been pushed out and some highly strange things are going on. A series of expeditions has been sent in to try to understand the place, with mixed success. The first expedition reported a preserved, beautiful wilderness. Subsequent ones ended with the deaths of all the members. The last expedition returned one by one without explanation. Now an expedition of women has been sent in.
The story is told from the perspective of the expedition's biologist. The specifics of the story are not so relevant here--this volume is mostly about setting up the rest of the series.
Only this volume was nominated for a Nebula, and if not for the World Fantasy Award I probably would not pursue it further. But all three books in the series were released in 2014, and the World Fantasy Award nominated the whole set. So I'll pursue the rest of the series. This one gets a weak three stars--I can't critique it too specifically, it just didn't really grab me. However, the descriptions of the next books are promising. We shall see.
Which novel do I like for the Nebula this year? In general, I don't think it was a great year for Nebula novels--the novellas were much better. I would say Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword is worthy of the nod. It's a fine piece of writing. I'm thinking the next volume will get award nods too.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
The Goblin Emperor is the fifth Nebula nominated novel I'm reading this year. Katherine Addison is a pseudonym for Sarah Monette, a prolific author but one I do not remember reading without looking it up.
The book itself is billed as a court intrigue novel, and that it is. Pretty much all it is. But perhaps some expectation setting is in order. Let's compare this with the Song of Ice and Fire series, though this one is not nearly so ambitious...
In Westeros, the rulers seem to pretty much have no rules, and blood runs freely. The weak and even not so weak get knocked off in gruesome fashion. The magic is rare but grandiose--there are dragons.
By contrast, Ethuveraz is a quiet country. The world is peopled with elves and goblins (the latter from Barzhin) but this is pretty much a cover--a way to talk about races with only as much of the freighting of black and white (goblins are black, elves white) as the author wishes. Worst case scenarios run to banishment--while there are scenes of violence and attempts on the protagonist's life, they just don't seem serious. While the central episode of the book is the assassination of the emperor and all his family but one--our protagonist Maia, banished at birth from the court--the blood and gore do not resonate in everyday life. Magic is present but just barely.
This is a tale of court intrigue in something close to the Great Britain of the 19th century. The technology is positioned there, with the inexplicable exception that airships have been invented but cars have not. Our protagonist is thrust totally unprepared into the emperor role, and spends most of the book regretting what he does not know. He is despised by many (his mother was a goblin princess) but seems to grow on all who meet him in spite of his awkwardness.
The intrigue of the story is undergirded by a sense of the stability of the country. Not much is really going to go wrong. So the story is mostly about a rather unassuming, caring person thrust into a role of power and making his way.
Not a lot of roiling excitement--it's hard to say how a peaceful and prosperous reign makes a story--but here we have one. And it seems to be well regarded--it's on the World Fantasy Award list as well. I give it 3 stars, solid but not that exciting.
The book itself is billed as a court intrigue novel, and that it is. Pretty much all it is. But perhaps some expectation setting is in order. Let's compare this with the Song of Ice and Fire series, though this one is not nearly so ambitious...
In Westeros, the rulers seem to pretty much have no rules, and blood runs freely. The weak and even not so weak get knocked off in gruesome fashion. The magic is rare but grandiose--there are dragons.
By contrast, Ethuveraz is a quiet country. The world is peopled with elves and goblins (the latter from Barzhin) but this is pretty much a cover--a way to talk about races with only as much of the freighting of black and white (goblins are black, elves white) as the author wishes. Worst case scenarios run to banishment--while there are scenes of violence and attempts on the protagonist's life, they just don't seem serious. While the central episode of the book is the assassination of the emperor and all his family but one--our protagonist Maia, banished at birth from the court--the blood and gore do not resonate in everyday life. Magic is present but just barely.
This is a tale of court intrigue in something close to the Great Britain of the 19th century. The technology is positioned there, with the inexplicable exception that airships have been invented but cars have not. Our protagonist is thrust totally unprepared into the emperor role, and spends most of the book regretting what he does not know. He is despised by many (his mother was a goblin princess) but seems to grow on all who meet him in spite of his awkwardness.
The intrigue of the story is undergirded by a sense of the stability of the country. Not much is really going to go wrong. So the story is mostly about a rather unassuming, caring person thrust into a role of power and making his way.
Not a lot of roiling excitement--it's hard to say how a peaceful and prosperous reign makes a story--but here we have one. And it seems to be well regarded--it's on the World Fantasy Award list as well. I give it 3 stars, solid but not that exciting.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Coming Home, by Jack McDevitt
Coming Home is the seventh novel in the Alex Benedict series, and next up in my reading of the Nebula nominees for this year. I'm struggling with whether to damn this novel with faint praise or be a bit more direct. I'll let you be the judge from here.
Alex Benedict is an antiquities dealer nine thousand years in the future. His Boswell (hence narrator of these stories) is Chase Kolpath, ace pilot and beautiful assistant. This installment has two story lines--Benedict's tracking of lost artifacts from the early space age, and the rescue of his uncle Gabe from a ship caught in a spacetime warp.
McDevitt is a solid speculator--we have some history on civilization's collapse, and a recap of encounters with the alien Mutes. But it still rings odd to have people basically not changing traditions over ten thousand years, and using technologies that aren't even current now.
My main issue here is that this work is just dry as dust. McDevitt always has that tendency, but sometimes the stories are fun anyway. This was more of a slog. Everyone is perfectly reasonable and speaks in the careful way office workers at major corporations speak. You can't tell men from women, good guys from bad ones. Makes it awfully hard to build dramatic tension, and this one doesn't. I'm going to have forgotten all about it in a week or so. The book is worthwhile if you are a fan of the series as it does advance the story. Not otherwise. Two stars from me.
Alex Benedict is an antiquities dealer nine thousand years in the future. His Boswell (hence narrator of these stories) is Chase Kolpath, ace pilot and beautiful assistant. This installment has two story lines--Benedict's tracking of lost artifacts from the early space age, and the rescue of his uncle Gabe from a ship caught in a spacetime warp.
McDevitt is a solid speculator--we have some history on civilization's collapse, and a recap of encounters with the alien Mutes. But it still rings odd to have people basically not changing traditions over ten thousand years, and using technologies that aren't even current now.
My main issue here is that this work is just dry as dust. McDevitt always has that tendency, but sometimes the stories are fun anyway. This was more of a slog. Everyone is perfectly reasonable and speaks in the careful way office workers at major corporations speak. You can't tell men from women, good guys from bad ones. Makes it awfully hard to build dramatic tension, and this one doesn't. I'm going to have forgotten all about it in a week or so. The book is worthwhile if you are a fan of the series as it does advance the story. Not otherwise. Two stars from me.
Monday, June 15, 2015
The Three Body Problem, by Liu Cixin
The Three Body Problem is the first Nebula nominee of it's kind that I have read--a translation of a Chinese science fiction novel. Liu Cixin is a very popular novelist in China, and he got a translation from an excellent author, Ken Liu.
Ken Liu says in the translator's notes that he is not trying to make the work sound like it was written in English. He succeeds in this, the novel definitely has a Chinese prose flavor. Overall slightly stiff, but kind of like Asimov.
The Three Body Problem is the first of the Three Body trilogy. The story starts in the Cultural Revolution, and we get a fantastic picture of how very distorted and violent life got in China during that time. During this time the Red Coast Base is constructed--an antenna to broadcast messages to the stars, as well as to receive them.
And such a message is indeed received. Trisolaris is a planet in a three-star system. It is the last surviving planet in the chaotic environment. Civilization has somehow developed to the point that it can survive the chaos. They receive a signal from the Red Coast Base and make plans to come to Earth, contacting humans through an advanced video game. Invasion to come?
This isn't a perfect book--the slight stiffness in the prose takes away a little--but the video game descriptions and scientific speculation are first rate and fascinating. Well worth the read. 3 stars from me.,
Ken Liu says in the translator's notes that he is not trying to make the work sound like it was written in English. He succeeds in this, the novel definitely has a Chinese prose flavor. Overall slightly stiff, but kind of like Asimov.
The Three Body Problem is the first of the Three Body trilogy. The story starts in the Cultural Revolution, and we get a fantastic picture of how very distorted and violent life got in China during that time. During this time the Red Coast Base is constructed--an antenna to broadcast messages to the stars, as well as to receive them.
And such a message is indeed received. Trisolaris is a planet in a three-star system. It is the last surviving planet in the chaotic environment. Civilization has somehow developed to the point that it can survive the chaos. They receive a signal from the Red Coast Base and make plans to come to Earth, contacting humans through an advanced video game. Invasion to come?
This isn't a perfect book--the slight stiffness in the prose takes away a little--but the video game descriptions and scientific speculation are first rate and fascinating. Well worth the read. 3 stars from me.,
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
We Are All Completely Fine is the first story I've read from Daryl Gregory, but I hope not the last. This novella definitely fits in the horror genre (he even shouts out the Last Girl plotline), but Gregory doesn't go for the easy gore. He tells the story in a fairly difficult way and gets great results.
We have an ensemble cast for the story--a group of people who share horrific, supernatural experiences of some kind. Five of them plus a psychologist who assembles them into a group for therapy.
What's different here is that she believes the stories of her clients. We have a guy who was partially eaten by cannibals, a woman who was a victim of a mutilator, a man who sees things in his gaming goggles, and a woman who appears to have been abused by a cult. Lastly, Harrison Harrison, the nominal focus of the book--as a boy he battled a supernatural invasion in the town of Dunnsmouth, and the experience was fictionalized.
All have their roles, and they play them well. Harrison reluctantly steps into the leadership role as they confront their demons--he manages to say little about himself, but lets on that he knows things (he killed, or attempted to kill, the mutilator.
The progression of the story is just about perfect, you can't see what's coming but feel like you're learning things along the way. I enjoyed every page--Gregory's writing here is tight, there's nothing unnecessary. I give it a strong four stars, and recommend it highly.
So that covers all the novellas for this year's Nebula. Which one do I like? While Yesterday's Kin and The Regular are contenders, I'll pick We Are All Completely Fine as my winner. We shall see.
We have an ensemble cast for the story--a group of people who share horrific, supernatural experiences of some kind. Five of them plus a psychologist who assembles them into a group for therapy.
What's different here is that she believes the stories of her clients. We have a guy who was partially eaten by cannibals, a woman who was a victim of a mutilator, a man who sees things in his gaming goggles, and a woman who appears to have been abused by a cult. Lastly, Harrison Harrison, the nominal focus of the book--as a boy he battled a supernatural invasion in the town of Dunnsmouth, and the experience was fictionalized.
All have their roles, and they play them well. Harrison reluctantly steps into the leadership role as they confront their demons--he manages to say little about himself, but lets on that he knows things (he killed, or attempted to kill, the mutilator.
The progression of the story is just about perfect, you can't see what's coming but feel like you're learning things along the way. I enjoyed every page--Gregory's writing here is tight, there's nothing unnecessary. I give it a strong four stars, and recommend it highly.
So that covers all the novellas for this year's Nebula. Which one do I like? While Yesterday's Kin and The Regular are contenders, I'll pick We Are All Completely Fine as my winner. We shall see.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Trial by Fire, by Charles Gannon
Back to the Novel category for the Nebulas, for the past couple of weeks I've been reading Charles Gannon's Trial by Fire, sequel to Fire With Fire, which was nominated for a Hugo. Trial by Fire likely would have been nominated in a normal year, but this wasn't a normal year for the Hugos. So it goes.
I wasn't real appreciative of Fire With Fire. Trial By Fire doesn't change the formula, but Gannon definitely refines it and plays to his strengths, making this a much better book.
Gannon's strengths are definitely in the military aspects of the genre. He really brings the otaku factor to his descriptions of current, historical and future weaponry. We get pages of fine detail on weaponry and tactics, with lots of happy warriors. Not our hero Caine Riordan, though--he continues to be disturbed by the carnage but capable of dishing it out.
This is a standard middle volume in a series, in that it is mostly setting the stage for what is to come. The humans fight a war against the advanced but normally peaceful Arat Kur and the equal but very warlike Hrkh'Hkr (or something like that). The humans have behind the scenes aid from the Dornaani, the most advanced of the alien species, while the Arat Kur have the K'tor, a very mysterious bunch. Gannon layers the plot twists onto the battles in a way that keeps you guessing.
The technology speculation is amusing at times--the speculation is tight on weapons, pretty nebulous elsewhere. Interstellar travel is done in well-defined lanes with acceleration (usually) but not too much detail. Reading is done on "dataslates"--here in the 21st century we call them "tablets". Too simple I guess.
So it's Golden Age SF, and as I said earlier, if you want more of it just go back to Heinlein. But this one is decent, I will give it 3 stars.
I wasn't real appreciative of Fire With Fire. Trial By Fire doesn't change the formula, but Gannon definitely refines it and plays to his strengths, making this a much better book.
Gannon's strengths are definitely in the military aspects of the genre. He really brings the otaku factor to his descriptions of current, historical and future weaponry. We get pages of fine detail on weaponry and tactics, with lots of happy warriors. Not our hero Caine Riordan, though--he continues to be disturbed by the carnage but capable of dishing it out.
This is a standard middle volume in a series, in that it is mostly setting the stage for what is to come. The humans fight a war against the advanced but normally peaceful Arat Kur and the equal but very warlike Hrkh'Hkr (or something like that). The humans have behind the scenes aid from the Dornaani, the most advanced of the alien species, while the Arat Kur have the K'tor, a very mysterious bunch. Gannon layers the plot twists onto the battles in a way that keeps you guessing.
The technology speculation is amusing at times--the speculation is tight on weapons, pretty nebulous elsewhere. Interstellar travel is done in well-defined lanes with acceleration (usually) but not too much detail. Reading is done on "dataslates"--here in the 21st century we call them "tablets". Too simple I guess.
So it's Golden Age SF, and as I said earlier, if you want more of it just go back to Heinlein. But this one is decent, I will give it 3 stars.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress
Yesterday's Kin is another entry in the Nebula novella category. This one was not online, but my library carried it.
I can't help comparing this one to her last novella nomination, After the Fall...since the look and heft of the book is about the same. But I liked this one quite a lot better.
Earth gets a visit from an alien race. Except they aren't alien, they are human, spun off from Earth early in mankind's history. This gives Kress the most straight-up shot at working with aliens that are really pretty much like us. She takes full advantage of it by presenting a culture that is very different, having evolved under different pressures, but recognizable.
The alien humans come to Earth with very advanced technology, including a "star drive". Also a warning. Panspermia is part of the speculation here, and the aliens warn of a cloud of "spores" carrying a virus. Earth will pass through it within a year, the aliens 25 years later. The aliens do not know how to prevent or cure it and would like our help.
Kress extrapolates on current politics, speculating that our current divide will continue and isolationism will rise up. Makes dealing with the aliens rather itchy. But they are taking the high road, working through the United Nations.
The fact that these aliens are indeed human plays well into the story. It's very coherent and well written, probably my favorite so far of the novellas, though there have been several good ones. It's a short read but very enjoyable. 4 stars from me, that good.
I can't help comparing this one to her last novella nomination, After the Fall...since the look and heft of the book is about the same. But I liked this one quite a lot better.
Earth gets a visit from an alien race. Except they aren't alien, they are human, spun off from Earth early in mankind's history. This gives Kress the most straight-up shot at working with aliens that are really pretty much like us. She takes full advantage of it by presenting a culture that is very different, having evolved under different pressures, but recognizable.
The alien humans come to Earth with very advanced technology, including a "star drive". Also a warning. Panspermia is part of the speculation here, and the aliens warn of a cloud of "spores" carrying a virus. Earth will pass through it within a year, the aliens 25 years later. The aliens do not know how to prevent or cure it and would like our help.
Kress extrapolates on current politics, speculating that our current divide will continue and isolationism will rise up. Makes dealing with the aliens rather itchy. But they are taking the high road, working through the United Nations.
The fact that these aliens are indeed human plays well into the story. It's very coherent and well written, probably my favorite so far of the novellas, though there have been several good ones. It's a short read but very enjoyable. 4 stars from me, that good.
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