Century Rain

The question of whether Alastair Reynolds’s sci-fi is reminiscent of Robert Charles Wilson (or vice-versa) is largely moot, because it just is. Same goes for the technological depth of his civilizations and the universe of wormholes. Whether it’s just as emotionally effective is a good question. Because, that’s where he does turn up short.

Century Rain is of that particular sci-fi genre where the myriad twisting and turning of the plot will get you in two worlds; one, an alternate-history earth in the 1950′s and another a nanotech devastated one three centuries later. The particularly clever bit is operating both at the same time (nearly) without involving any sort of time-travelling teleportation plotting. The plot setting is so prosaic, so near-science that it seems almost plausible.

On to the protagonists, the scene is that of an earth devastated due to technologies beyond the control of man (thankfully, not a nuclear war scenario). This devastation has resulted in two divergent groups being formed; the Threshers & the Slashers. Taken simply, one is a luddite (or a near approximation) & the other says forget the past & look to the future. The conflict between the two parties is an uneasy peace when our protagonist, an archaeologist, Verity Auger gets shanghaied into going to the alternate history earth (E2) because there seems to be trouble brewing. On the E2, we get to see a bass-player musician cum detective, Wendell Floyd, investigate the most peculiar scene of murder of a young woman who had recently come to Paris from US. Or had she. That is the beginning of the plot in a nutshell.

As I said earlier, the science behind Reynold’s book is solid. By solid, I mean it’s a fairly easy to spot genre half-science. But the way the science is integrated into the plot makes for pretty decent reading and on the whole the story looks good. And it better look good because that’s the only thing the book has going for it.

The character prose is just way too long. On my PRS500, this book came to about 1236 pages and I definitely got the feeling that somewhere between 350-450 words, a decent editor could have made it into a halfway exciting novella (if not a complete book) which would have rocked & rolled. What we get is just incessant plodding from one location to the other, easily anticipated plot-twists and nerdy half references to Casablanca & SlashDot. In spite of having a cool doomsday device, the endgame seems flat and without the gut of his other Revelation Space books

My rating on the book is 5/10. The poor characters and plotting let the book down majorly. Atleast it can be read independent of any other book in the series. That’s a mercy.

Review: S. Andrew Swann – [Apotheosis 1] Prophets

Space Opera; that buzzword which has launched a thousand ships warping their way through the known & unknown space-time continuum rediscovers the spirit of the Big Dumb Object in this new series from Andrew Swann. Alex Benedict fans may note that there is definitely a new game in town and it’s kicking butt.

Overall, the premise of the story is pretty straightforward. There is an unknown anomaly in space around a distant star which needs investigating. And then someone does exactly that. And there are complications. And inevitably, the situation on hand is that science fictional special…all f*cked up.

Written with the right touch, that is all that a SO novel really needs. L.E.Modesitt Jr. specializes in those types. As a bonus for us, S. Andrew Swann does exactly that. And he also pulls a trick of the Malazan on us. Multiple POV characters. Yes, multiple POV. On a non-GRRM/Erikson novel. Whowuddathunk, right?

But before I get ahead of myself, lemme just construct a bit of a straw man of the Swann’s universe. Okie, so the setting is a far distant future when FTL has already made possible the first wave of humanity’s conquest of the galaxy and the subsequent breakdown of this pax imperium. The eventual wars following the meltdown of junta have also quieted down and now there is a loose alliance-based polity at work. So, yes the setting is of peace. Of the people, the confusion couldn’t be more pronounced. Prior to the war & meltdown, there were three main areas in which human endeavor has been put – nanotech, AI and genetic evolution of other sentient species. And religions have sprouted in and around these genetic missteps.

In the backdrop of this, there is a somewhat disreputable scrap trader who brings together a bunch of mercenaries (who are all obviously the eminently quotable POV characters) and scientists to investigate a possible anomaly in a distant star system. On their heels is the establishment (or all the separate interest groups in the story) and some jack-in-the-box mysterious character who is pulling everyone together. The story is about what happens when all of these players are made to meet in a spot far away from their respective strongholds.

The strength of the novel lies in the unique species that the author has managed to create and manipulate. The underlying emotions although are all too human though. But these characters make for a very interesting reading and the POV shifts are not abrupt enough to shake away your attention from the story. It is a fair bit difficult to start off as the back-story is spread across info-dumps in the first quarter of the novel which makes for a fair bit of plodding before you catch on to whatever is happening. However, persistence at this stage would be paid off handsomely later in the book when you do get sucked into the story.

Personally for me, the book tipped the balance into interesting enough that I’d care to read the sequel. Although the current Amazon listing shows only one review of that indefatigable (wo)man-machine Klausener with 4 stars, I expect to see a bit more traction as the novel hits the reading circuit.

I’d suggest 8/10

Introductory Post, Or Why Photons With Character

Light is a wonderful thing. It is also very confusing. See formula

Note: if you can’t understand, you’re clearly not teh TG

Note 2: The formula is the uncertainty principle. In simple terms, it means that you can either have a pet cat, or eat a cheezburger. But you can’t have both. Logic courtesy: ICHC

The function of Light is to illuminate, but light reading requires zero or no illumination. Scientifically it’s either a wave or a particle but throwing light on the subject makes things no clearer. The opposite of light is dim, which is a groovy XML tag. People feel no slight if you call them light; yet light clothing is frowned upon. All this constitutes the conclusion that Light is a dysfunctional family of photons whom you can’t invite for lunch. (Slick, eh. The way I rick-rolled you into googling photons)

With all these photons zipping around at light speed, we tend to think of them as a collective. No personality, all business. Have speed, must travel. To us, they are nothing but a blur, a smear or a streak of light. However, you gotta think, to a wandering photon, we’d also appear a blur. A single stream of grey tops mumbling around in our corner offices, plotting to take over the world?

SFF is a lot like this. Sword wielders dueling sorcerers & emperors, mages in downtown Manhattan, giant spaceships blasting away at Death Star, Aliens doing alien stuff – useful tropes for classifying this lit., but awkward party conversation. This blog is to maintain that great tradition. Reading it will still not get you laid.

No aliens were harmed in the making of this blog. No photons were destroyed in the server SQL query.