Vector 183 the Critical Journal of the BSFA

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Vector 183 The critical journal of the BSFA

£2.25 July/August 1995

Books of the year 1994 2 Vector

Editor: Catie Cary Vector 183 224 Southway, Park Barn. Guildford, Surrey, GU2 6DN Vector is a bi-monthly publication of the BSF A. which also brings you the news Hardback Reviews· Paul Kincaid magazine Matrix. and the writers' 60 Bournemouth Road. Folkestone. magazine Focus. Membership is £ 18 per Kent, CT J9 SAZ year for UK residents, £9 for unwaged. Pl ease enquire for overseas rates. Paperback Reviews: Stephen Payne 24 Ma lvern Road, Stoneygate, New members and renewals: Leicester, LE2 2BH Al ison Cook, 52 Woodhill Drive, Grove, Wantage, Oxon OX l 2 ONB, UK Magazine Reviews: Maureen Speller 60 Bournemouth Road, Folkestone. USA: Kent, CTI 9 5AZ Cy Chauvin, 14248 Wilfred Street, Detroit. Ml 48213, USA Printed by: PDC Copyprint 11 Jeffries Passage, Guildford, Surrey. The British Science Fiction Association Ltd GU I 4AP Limited by guarantee - Company No: 921500 Registered address: 60 Bournemouth Road. Vector is publ ished by the BSFA O 1995 Folkestone, Kent CTl9 5AZ All opinions are those ofrhe individual contributor and should no1 necessarily be taken

Editorial

Because of pressure of work, Catie Cary was unable to put together an issue of Vector for this mailing. This issue has been put together at short notice by Paul Kincaid. Cati e has decided that her work commitments are now gelling too much for her lO keep up with her editorial duties on Vector, so she has reluctantly decided that it is time to step down. She will edit one more issue, which is due out iri. time for the Worldcon in August, then retire. So the BSF A is now looking for a new editor. In particular we are looking for someone to act as Features Editor and someone to act as Production Editor, but if anyone is willing and ab le to take on the whole job we'd be delighted to hear from you. Anyone interested in taking on the job of Vector editor should contact Maureen Kincaid Speller, 60 Bournemouth Road, Folkestone, Kent CTl9 SAZ, or e-mail [email protected] In the meantime, the main feature in this issue is the result of our annual survey of BSF A reviewers to determine what books stood out for them in 1994. And very surprising reading it makes as well .

Paul Kincaid Vector 3

Books of the Year 1994

V cctor Reviewers' Poll 2 Book of the Year Towing Jehovah Complicity James Morrow Iain Banks 3=

Lost Souls Poppy Z. Brite With a British Worldcon looming. you'd expect publishers Cale11t11re to bri ng out books likely to Storm Constantine compete for Hugo honours. Instead. the books that appeared Love mu/ Sleep have made little impression. John Crowley It is curious that the BSF A Award winner didn't feature on North Wind the Arthur C. Clarke Award Gwyneth Jones shortlist. while the Clarke Award winner wasn't on the short list for Green Mars the BSFA Award. In fact, if you Kim Stanley Robinson compare the two shortli sts, they might have come from different years such is the lack of overlap. A JVe/1-Favouretl Mt111 Then. when we conduct our Elizabeth Willey annual poll of Vector reviewers, we find the BSF A Award Winner Lake ofthe lo11g S1111 languishing among the also-rans, Gene Wolfe and the Clarke Award winner doesn't feature at all (but Pat Th e Broken God Cadigan's Fools made a David Zindell respectable showing last year. when only available in an imported American ed ition)! 4 Vector

Some 80 titles were nomi nated by reviewers, Other nominated books and for a time it looked as if no si ngle book would (i n alphabetical order of emerge as the winner Never in the ten years o r so author) of thi s poll have so many books been li sted, with such little agreement as to the favourite Th e ffo11se of Doctor Dee As ever, reviewers were given ,·arte hlanche. Peter Ackroyd Books needn't have been published during the year in question, nor did they have to be science fiction, Somewhere East of Life or even fiction. Brian Aldiss This year, more non-sf and more non-fiction than usual was nominated . l S titles were not sf or A ffi.-tory of God fanta sy (though that 15 does include four Karen Armstrong non-fiction books w ith sf or fantasy related subjects). Tire Birds No fewer than 8 books were also in last year's Frank Baker top 30. In some instances, of course, thi s is simply a matter of catching up, or of waiting for a Feersum Endjinn paperback edition like the rest ofus. Yet, up there Iain M. Banks near the top of the list, and a book that looked for a while as if it was going to top the poll, is Lo,,e Everville and Sleep by John Crowley, which is so far only Clive Barker available in American hardback. So the reviewers seem to be as adventurous as Mother ofStorms ever in their reading, while turning John Barnes more than ever to old books, some, such as the two by Olaf Stapledon, Who Was that Man? dating from the 1930s. In many Neal Bartlett ways this is reassuring, science fiction is old enough now to have a Arthur Rex venerable history, and books like Thomas Berger John Crowley's Engine Summer (described by K. V. Bailey as: Drawing Blood "Unique: future myth, ingeniously if Poppy Z. Brite unevenly realised, and so beautifully w ritten") and the Engineman Stapledons deserve to be read time Eric Brown and again. Yet to have them cropping up stilJ among the books Interface of the year is a little unexpected. Stephen Bury In the end, o f course, the current crop of fantasy and sf rises to the top. Not Th e Land of Laughs the very top, which bel ongs to Iain Banks's Jonathan Carroll ingenious crime th rill er with his mordant violence and cruel humour. As Tanya Brown remarked: Foreigner "Sometimes it feels as though Banks is teetering on C.J. Cherryh a narrow line between controversy and mere shock value but all in all a thought-provoking and entertaining read." It's hard to say whether this had more to say to sf readers than lain M. Banks's Vector 5

Feersum Endjinn, or whether it was just that Complicity, which appeared earlier in the year, also The Encyclopedia of Science had a paperback edition whereas Feersum Endjinn, Fiction as yet, has not . John Clute & Peter Nicholls Other than Complicity, the only books to (eds) receive significant votes were current sf and fantasy. James Morrow's Towing Jehovah, ("Entertaining Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for and thought-provoking as well as (of course) the Future preposterous" said Norman Beswick) was the Robert Crossley surprising runner-up. Then came North Wind by Gwyneth Jones, runner-up for the Clarke Award, Engine Summer which Paul Kincaid called "sly, subtle and John Crowley remarkably satisfying"; Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars, described by Steve Jeffery as Best New Science Fiction 8 promising to be "the hard science fiction Gardner Dozois (ed) achievement of the 1990s"; and Gene Wolfe's Lake of the Long Sun, of which Cherith Baldry said: Permutation City "Wolfe never ceases to amaze me . I don't know Greg Egan how he can be so complex and subtle and at the same time so lucid" Shadow of a Dark Queen Yet there were surprises. A Well-Favoured Man Raymond E. Feist by Elizabeth Willey has not received the same publicity The Art ofScience Fiction or attention as other books Frank Kelly Freas on the list (these may not be unconnected), but it's Aurian there, perhaps driven by Maggie Furey the same sort of word-of-mouth which Bloodstone pushed Vurt to the top of David Gemmell the rankings last year. If comments like Simon Red Ball Bisson's ("If there had to John Gideon be a best fantasy novel of the last couple of years this The Making of King Kong Tempest meets Amber Orville Goldner & George book may well be it") are E. Turner anything to go by, it is likely to pick up a loyal readership. Summer King, Winter Fool Last year even books which were 20th or 30th Lisa Goldstein on the list had been picked by two or three reviewers. This yeai-, beyond the first ten titles, no Gray's Anatomy book was mentioned more than once. Which Spalding Gray explains why this list is broader, but more curious. There are titles one would have expected to receive Take Back Plenty more votes: Greg Egan's Permutation City, for Colin Greenland instance, ("a deep exploration of philosophy, physics and mathematics" - Simon Bisson) or Rachel Pollack's Temporary Agency which K. V. 6 Vector

Bailey says "in its deployment of magic and Sorcerer's Ward metaphysics is even more persuasive - and Barbara Hambly terrifying - than Unquenchable Fire", or those two novels in which sf confronts the Waking the Moon weather, Mother of Storms by John Barnes Elizabeth Hand and Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling. The award-winning China Mountain Zhang by Ascent of Wonder Maureen F. McHugh (" The undramatic nature David Hartwell & Kathryn of the plot is the very strength of the book: it Cramer (eds) is a story of the little people who are so often overlooked by sf writers" - Andy Sawyer) Miss Smil/a's Feeling for Snow may pick up more votes next year since it was Peter Hoeg only available in an American edition. While lmerface by Stephen Bury might do better if Grailb/al,l!.rs it receives a British edition, and ifit is realised Tom Holt that Bury is a pseudonym for Neal Stephenson who came close to beating Vurt City of the Iron Fish with Snow Crash ("Stephenson better than Simon lngs ever with US history as conspiracy" - Andrew M Butler). And there are unexpected The Language of the Genes discoveries, or re-discoveries, such as 11,e Steve Jones Birds by Frank Baker ("If I've read one novel which deserves to be re-discovered, this is it The House of Lost Dreams ... a forgotten masterpiece• - Gary Daikin). Graham Joyce Fantasy did better than usual this year. Old favourites Raymond Feist, Barbara Nightmares and Dreamscapes Hambly and David Gemmell were joined by Stephen King newer writers such as Maggie Furey, whose first novel, Aurian was "a new voice trotting Pasquale's Angel out tried and tested fantasy elements in a way Paul McAuley that refreshes" - Vikki Lee. Paula Volsky aroused interest with The Wolf of Winter, "a China Mountain Zhang sweeping novel of high fantasy in which the Maureen F. McHugh characters are so skilfully drawn as to arouse by tum sympathy and disgust, then sypathy Nautilus again". according to Martin Brice. Vonda McIntyre Horror also had its adherents. Andy Sawyer called Kim Newman's The Quon1m, Intervention "a darkly funny novel which manages to Julian May overturn several of the conventions of the horror n ovel in its ambiguity towards the Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving nature of evil" . While Norman Beswick said Martin Miller that The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice was "Vampirism used to explore and probe as Th e Facts of Life well as surprise and excite". Richard Milton Along with Complicity, other mainstream novels evoked something akin to "sense of wonder". Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg "has more sense of an alien world Vector 7

(and more hard science) than many sl7fantasy the li st. It is there again this year, joined by novels ... and a sense of atmosphere and place several other reference and non-fiction books, which is evocative enough to make you shiver such as Robert Crossley's monumental even in a warm room" - Tanya biogaphy of Olaf Stapledon. Brown. Peter Ackroyd's The Andy Sawyer said "If you House of Doctor Dee; read one biography this year it according to Steve Jeffery has to be this full and "weaves together careful sympathetic picture of a writer hi storical research, haunting who deserves to be better and possession and dark known.11 sexuality to arrive at a bleak One thing remains: and shocking question of however much science fiction identity" grew up in the magazines, Last year the revised short stories don't feature well ed ition of John Clute and Peter in these lists. Out of 80 books, Nicholls's The Encyclopedia of only two short story collections Science Fiction appeared on were mentioned. Ah well.

The City, Not Long After The Iron Dragon's Pat Murphy Half Asleep in Frog Daughter Pajamas Michael Swanwick Tire Quorum Tom Robbins Kim Newman Sideshow Siege of Darkness Sheri Tepper Vurt R.A. Salvatore Jeff Noon The Wolf of Winter A Suitable Boy Paula Volsky Felidae Vikram Seth Akif Pirincci The Fallen Moon The Ends of the Earth Ian Watson Temporary Agency Lucius Shepard Rachel Pollack The Skystone Stone Diaries Jack Whyte Men at Arms Carol Shields Terry Pratchett Doomsday Book Last and First Men Connie Willis Soul Music Olaf Stapledon Terry Pratchett A Bridge of Years Star Maker Robert Charles Wilson Raiders oft/re Lost Olaf Stapledon Carpark White Moon, Red Robert Rankine Heavy Weather Dragon Bruce Sterling David Wingrove The Tale of the Body Thief Globalhead Ca/de of the Long Sun Anne Rice Bruce Sterling Gene Wolfe 8 Vector

Reviews of Hardbacks and Paperback Originals edited by Paul Kincaid

ide Allen crisis and civil war. Inferno Index of books rev iewed Roger MacBr Isaac As imov's Inferno explores the cusp: the murder of the planet's Spacer governor. In the Milleni11m. / 994, 1./-lpp, £14.99 Roger MacBride Allen - Isaac ensuing turmoil the finger of Reviewed by Simon Bisson Asimov's Inferno suspicion points at Caliban, and lain M. Banks - Feerswn Endjinn Sheriff Alvar Kresh, together with Everyone has heard of Asimov's Clive Barker - Everville Caliban's designer, must untangle 'Three Laws of Robotics'. We've Robert Crossley - O/a/Stapledon: the webs of conspiracy. whilst seen how he created stories based Speaking/or the Future keeping the fragi le peace. around paradoxical interpretations David Gemmell - lronhand's There are a lot of of these laws, including a trilogy of Da11gh1er share-cropped novels about. and intriguing science fiction William Gibson - Ne11romancer the Estate of the late Dr Asimov whodunnits. Now Isaac has passed Frances Gordon - Blood Rilual has a lot to answer for - with the his torch onto Roger MacBritlt! Alasdair Gray - A Hislory Maker RobOl City and Robot's In Time Allen, through the graces of the Wendy Haley - These Fallen series fillin g the bookshop shelves . Byron Preiss sharecropping Angels Most writers seem to use these factory. Robert Jordan - Lord a/ Chaos simple pot•boilers as a tool for /11/emo, part of a planned Jeanne Kalogridis - Covenwu paying the bills, but Allen has trilogy, is the sequel to Caliban wilh rhe Vampire interesting ideas and strong views, which introduced the eponymous Richard Layman - Quake and uses them to raise /nfem o No-Law' robot as well as robots Tanith Lee - A Heroineof1he above the general sea of that obey a variant of the classic World mediocrity. His novel Orphan of Three Laws, the four New Laws. Jonathan Lethem -G1111 wilh Creation explored the linked These depend on co-operative Occasional Music moralities of animal activities, so they give robots more Michael Moorcock - Blood experimentation and human freedom than the Three Laws' Melanie Rawn - Skybowl slavery. Inferno asks a new imperatives. In the same manner as Ed Regis - Nano! question: what responsibilities do Asimov's R. Danee\ Olivaw/Lije Robert Sil ve rberg - Beyond 1he we have to slaves we've created? Baley novels, Inferno is a who, or Safe Zone The co-operative nature of the New perhaps what, dunnit. Dan Simmons - Fires of Eden Laws may be an answer, but they The 'Inferno' of the title is a Alison Sinclair - Legacies remain chains of a different sort world simmering on the edge of Sue Thomas - Waler Inferno isn't classic SF, but it conflict between Settlers, new Harry Turtledove - World War : is decent mid list writing. After his colonists from Earth, and Spacers, Tilling 1he Balance The Hunted Earlh diptych , Roger the robot-dependent descendants of Gene Wolfe - Ca/de ofth e Long MacBride Allen has become a the original terraformers. With the Sun name to watch in the hard SF field, planet's terrafo nning beginning to fail, the scene is set for political Vector 9

Inferno won't have done his career if I did, but as I dont I cant nway, ad return to effect astounding any harm. u c?" rescues. Death is no longer a once There arc ten chapters, each only event ad one of the funnier of which uaccs regularly and in sequences in the novel tells of the lain M. Banks order the storylines of the four successive immediate deaths of a Feersum Endjinn central characters, except where character. Time runs at different Orbit, /99./, 279pp, ll5.99 the plot dictates the occasional speeds. Reviewed by Lynne Fox interpolation of another viewpoint. In the complex rendering of This neat structure isn't obvious as thi s amazing world, Banks pulls you read but provides some into service the conventions of necessary linear coherence to a many literary genres. At times richly complex world. Feersum Eml_jinn is fable, allegory. The separate strands swash-buckling adventure, intenwine and move faster as the dystopia, comedy, surreal dream. denouement approaches and And as the novel resides in no characters begin to convene in the fixed genre, so the reader cannot same physical locations. The four assume a single appropriate main characters are Asura, a reading. There isn't much stable strange inncoccnt springing fully ground in Feersum Endjinn. grown from we know not where; Yet there is a fundamental Gadfium, a hard-bitten, devious security of vision which permeates and determined scientist; Count the book, and it's of an old and Sessine, a romantic hero, and simple variety. In the end, I thi nk. Bascule, a young teller. Each of Feersum Endjinn works ,vith all these, unbeknownst to the others, the power of a fairy tale. There is is moving towards the same goal, hope, valour, courage, kindness. and each illuminates sometrung of These values ,vin through; and this the perplexing world of the novel basic security carries the readers fo r the reader. and characters through the The first thing to do after reading Initially, these different confusions of their search. Most of Feersum Endjinn is to read it viewpoints create and add to the this is realised through the again, to assemble the experience extraordinary layering of character of Bascule - a triumph into a greater/a differem impressions we have of Serehfa. of creation. coherence, and, of course, to meet Banks confuses us with a Bascule is a young character Bascule again. multiplicity of para.dims which in who writes phonetically, a device In a sense, this re-reading is tum seem to explain this strange which is incredibly funny. These necessary because the book is a world as software, vi rtual rcali1y, passages, though they initially search for coherence and medieval battleground, church, slow the reader, give a wonderful understanding that is never doll's house, mirror-world or innocence and humour to a completely resolved. At least, not paradise garden. Each paradigm, character who othenvise might be fo r the reader. And trus is what like each viewpoint, only too good 10 be true. Bascule is gives the book its powerful impact. illuminates panially. Our extremely articulate (some of As in his earlier novel, The perception of the world shifts. is Banks's best writing is in these Bridge, Banks recreates the search suddenly, stanlingly located in the passages, just sec what he has to experience of the central real world by reference to familiar say in Chapter 3 about the characters through a neat place names, and moves again as evolution of birds), courageous, structuring of the novel and a we learn about the crypt, where honest and loyal. Like a traditional careful dispensing of information. life is lived again. Life after death? fairy talc hero he is friendly to To emphasise the si,ructure is A vinual life? Life as information animals - here ants, sloths, to suggest that Feersum Endjinn is in a computer system? The sparrows and lammergeiers - and more immediately comprehensible surfaces shift constantly. old people; bravely goes 10 rescue than it is. My level of All this is only the beginning a friend and performs a heroic understanding most of the way of the rich and wonderful deed. Innocent and ignorant. through was about that of Gaston confusion. People arc people, Bascule is a moral touchstone. a the sloth: "Thers fings goan on ... , constructs, animal chimerics; source of security in the thass ol I can sai ... Frankly I dont animals talk, arc chimerics, are bewildering wonder of the novel. no xaclly who! they r myself, or nanotechs. Characters apparently So I want 10 re-read it, to whethir Id b abl 2 tel u about them die only 10 live again in the crypt. make the journey again with more 10 Vector

finished, com information and pick up on more baddies. Barker excels at the plete with a foreword of the puns, jokes and clues which baddies. He's like a Lovecraft in by Aldiss. Crossley has also edited a collectio arc woven into the dense world of overdrive when he starts n of Stapledon's letters, a couple of previously unpublished this brilliant novel. describing the various monsters, demons and associated works and written on the relationship bct\\u:n Clive Barker supernatural creatures that Wells and populate this volume. Some are Stapled.on. Even-ille individuals, like the K.issoon, Mr At fi rst glance, it is indeed an HarperCollins, 1994, 640pp , Buddcnbaum, King Texas; some uneventful life. Born in 1886, in £15.99 are unclassifiable, like the Lix and Wallasey, Olaf grew up in the Reviewed by Stephen Payne the lad. Barker is very particular Liverpool area and in Pon Said, about his names. And the good where his father worked. At fifteen There's a scene in Evuville where guys? Well you may recognize he was sent to a progressive one or the protagonists, Joe, some of them - Tesla, Grillo and boarding school, Abbotsholme, in having stumbled upon the D' Amour all make a return visit. Derbyshire, and then went up to wonderland or'Quidity' cast , is Thrown together; they live, love Balliol College, Oxford to read into its dream sea. Within its and die for the secret of Evervillc history. When he graduated, depths, he makes love to the and its fantastical twin, the Stapledon was unable to settle dream-realised persona or his dreamland ofQuidity. down to a career, and variously lover, Phoebe, as she lies sleeping Everville is a g reat, throbbing worked in his father's shipping in her bed in the ' real' world or nco-gothic adventure. In it, Barker company, and taught at Everville. This is, I think, the most has created a Cthulu mythos fo r Manchester Grammar School and touching moment in this huge, the nineties, a Peyton Place from at WEA colleges. He was teaching sprawling novel. Joe, on the run Hell. As the plot st.rands entwine in Nonh Wales at the outbreak of after killing Phoebe's brutal, to their inevitable conclusion, we the First World War and, feeling abusive husband, and Phoebe , can step back and wonder al the unwilling to fight and unsure of stranded in the mundanity or extraordinary imagination on going to prison for being a Everville, are cast as the display here. For Barker is not a conscientious objector, volunteered star-crossed lovers, and the great writer, his talent, confirmed to work as an ambulance drivec in looking-glass nature or this book is by his paintings, illusuations and France. It was not until the 1930s highlighted so dramatically to the movies, is imagination - and that's that he became involved in the reader. As the convoluted tentacles why we are so entranced by his politics of peace, advocating a or Li.e plot twist and tum about books. world government, and attended these two characters, it is the PEN conferences across Europe, as nature of Barker's imagination that well as a disasuous gathering in we see so clearl y ... Robtrt Cro.,ley New York in 1949. By then his Everville is the place where fiction was already beginning Olaf Stapledon: Sptaking to the crossroads between two worlds fall into obscurity, and he died the meet, where all hell (quite for the Future next year. literally) is waiting to let loose. Liverpool, 1994, 474pp, £32.50 As with most biographies, this The novel starts where it has to Reviewed by Andrew But1cr one ueads a fine line between start, at the founding of the town a being exhaustive and exhausting. century or so ago. but the founding In an anicle in The Times Literary The first one hundred and eighty is surrounded by mystery and lies Supplement in September 1983, pages fall into the latter category, - lhc skeletons in the closet art Brian Aldiss reviewed Leslie as Staplcdon struggles to find a numerous and just waiting to get Fiedler's book on Staplcdon, voice in (lacgcly unseen) poetry out. The narrative soon switches to noting the irony of it being an and to choose a suitable career, the present day and Barker then American who was first to write at though the account or his sets about inuoducing his length about the English writer. couruhip or his Australian first ensemble cast. There's Joe and Aldiss noted: 'the uncventfulness cousin, Agnes Miller, is sketchy at Phoebe, or course, a gaggle of or his lStapledon's) life' and times. We arc told: 'Just before he townspeople celebrating the concluded that: 'It would be set off for Nonh Wales, Agnes had annual town fair with brass bands appropriate if Olaf Staplcdon agreed to marry him (though by and lemonade, a selection of found his greatest readership in mid-August she had changed her characters from Barker's previous the future.' Another American, mind' (p.124). Why had she volume in this series The Great Robcn Crossley, responded to agreed? Why did she change her and Secret Show, a few ghosts and Aldiss by beginning to research a mind? Presumably the answers arc last, but ccnainly not least, the biography, and a decade on it is in Talking Across the World Vector 11

(1987), a collection of Agnes and was a champion of workers, but has languished for so long. Ola.f's love letters edited by not a communist. a philosopher Aldiss's comments about the irony Crossley, but it would surely bear and teacher but not academic, of Americans who arc interested in repeating. Why, on the eve of his pacifist but not a conscientious this English writer remain valid American trip, did Stapledon defy objector. more than ten years on, but geographical sense b}• giving a Crossley has done a splendid Liverpool University Press are to lecture in Hull !hen staying in a job of relating these divided be praised for bringing this Scarborough hotel, before attitudes to the work itself. He has biography to an English spending the next day in London? drawn the autobiographical readership. It seems likely that The account of the visit lo New parallels in the fiction without las! and Firs! Men and Star York deals in much detail with his falling into the trap of suggesting Maker's (1937) status as classics brush with the FBI and that Stapledon merely transmuted will keep them coming back into anti-0>mmunists. but devotes less his life into art. At times he is print over the decades. But than a page 10 his meeting with sceptical, as he is with Stapledon's perhaps the Liverpool University the American sf writers of the claim that IAsl and First Men Press Science Fiction Texts and Hydra Club. ( 1930) was inspired by an Studies could now draw upon the But then Staplcdon is never epiphany whilst watching seals in Stapledon Archives in the bowels presented as an sf writer in this North Wales in 1928 (pp. 183-4). of their library to prcxiuce reprints biography: his interest in This clearly jars \\ith Stapledon's of equally interesting works such astronomy, his friendship with J. stated working methods, and as Death inlo Life (1946) and 8 . S. Haldane, his correspondence provides an unfeasibly short time Youth and Tomorrow (1946), plus with Wells the social reformer and span in which to draft two billion his unpublished manuscripts. his involvement with Arthur C. years of future history. Stapledon's writing, which Clarke and lhc British But while Crossley's consistently demonstrates Interplanetary Society, yes, but scholarship appears faultless, his humanity's insignificance in the there is no sense of Eric Frank execution on occasion leaves cosmos, should naturally Russell living just down the road, something to be desired. There are overshadow the human author nor of the pulp tradition across the a few pointless repetitions, such himself. But the fact that both Atlantic. Staplcdon chose to write the references to Stapledon's work writing and author have not faded for magazines such as 1he London for the poor of Liverpool (p. I 02 into obscurity over the last decade Mercury and Scrutiny rather than and p. 111) and to Katherine is largely due to Crossley's efforts. Astounding. To make an awkward Burdckin's pseudonym or Murray distinction: Olaf produced a Constantine (p. 210 and p. 276). lilcraturc of philosophy rather than More problematic is Stapledon's David Gemm ell a literature of ideas. friend Lilian Bowes-Lyon being lronha nd's Da ughter In fact it becomes clear from twice described as 'cousin or the Legend, 1995, 283pp, £15.99 the biography that it is more Queen Mother' (p. 268 and p. Reviewed by Cherith Baldry helpful to view him rather as a 366), which is surely anachronistic modernist than an sf writer. prior to 1952. Perhaps these may lronhand's Daughter is the first Whilst Aldiss, in his foreword, be due to Crossley's nationality; part of a new series or novels by claims that: 'Stapledon affected to the continual capitalisation of the despise' the Bloomsbury group (p. North and mentions of Wirral, David Gemmell under the general title: The Hawk Queen. xiii) (and his earlier review stated ralher than the Wirral, also read In this introductory volume, he was against them), the reality is awkwardly. This is probably also more complex. Olaf corresponded at the root or Crossley's decision to Gemmell presents a Highland kingdom which, some years with Virginia Woolf, attended begin the biography proper with meetings with E. M. Fors1er and Stapledon's arrival in the United previously, was defeated and enslaved by the Outlanders. The defended T. S. Eliot's poetry. It is States. The next three hundred and Outlander baron Ranulph tempting to read a line in Odd fifty pages thus lead up to this. John (1935) as autobiographical; although for the first half or 1hcsc Gotasson now intends to finish the job by invading the Highlands and after John's attack on the it seems an unlikely event for Bloomsbury writers, he tells the Stapledon to be involved with. slaughtering the inhabitants. The Highland people look narrator: 'You're an outsider. Fate These are minor carpings. has kept you fluttering safely in however. Crossley has produced back to the days of their greatness, and in particular to lronhand, their the backward Non.h.' It seems fair an important piece of scholarship, to suggest that Staplcdon would which deserves to spark the rescue greatest king who, legend says, did not be a member of any club that of Stapledon's work from the not die but passed into another would have him as a member. He minor writer label under which he world from where he will return 12 Vector

bu1 on the whole the reader is left standard hardback, there isn't in doubl where their sympathies much that makes ii 'Special' should lie. beyond a flash on the cover and a Another problem is with the woefully shon afterword by the character of Siga.rni herself. We author. arc continually told how Still, it does give us an charismatic she is, with men opportunity to reassess vowing themselves willingly to her Neuromancer. In his brief service, yet 1he greatness or her afterword, Gibson quotes as his character is never made real. And favourite description of the book a although there is an obvious point passage from Bruce Sterling: in making the saviour or the 'Aboul four hundred separate and Highlanders a woman, Sigami's various crimes arc committed .. attitudes and way of life are so Whenever normal people or close to the masculine that a lot of authority figures show up in the this poim is lost. However. there novel they arc almost always arc more volumes to come. so immediately killed. At the end, the there is a lot of scope for the Artificial Intelligence ·wins, and character to develop and it might gets what it wants. The lovers, by when his people need him. They be only fair to reserve a final contrast, break up.' If this is live in e.xpcctation of the rising of judgement Neuramancer as the author wants a leader against the Outlanders. David Gemmell is a writer I to sec it, then it is a pretty slick, Into this situation comes the respect and I have enjoyed his superficial son ofbook. But then, huniress Siga.rni, the last of the earlier books, but I found that is exactly what Neuromancer bloodline of the Highland kings, /ronhand's Daughter is. That amount of crime in what who is revealed to have a disappointing. It's readable, and is no more than an average length panicularly close connection to I'll look for the next in the .series, novel, the way that authority Ironhand himself. It will cause no but I never really felt involved in figures arc written out almost as surprise that it is she who it soon as they appear, tell us that emerges. during the course of the this is a novel written in a hurry. book, as the leader for whom her Gibson himself has said in people have been waiting. William Gibson interviews that whenever the pace Quite a lot of this scenario Neuromancer flagged he would introduce a new sounds familiar. The connection HarperCo/lins, 1994, 277pp, character, or spark off a new with Arthurian legend is made £14.99 incident. Judging from the jagged through Ironhand and through Reviewed by Paul )(jncaid feel of the novel, the pace flagged Gwalchmai (Sir Gawain allowed about once every two or three to grow old?), a prophet who cared So this is the book that launched a pages. for the young Sigami. There is thousand cyberpunks, tha1 What ·we are looking at is a also a connection to the historical bequeathed the word 'cyberspace' book in which any overall shape or events in Scotland during and after to the language, that turned a plot is subsumed under the dread the '45 Rebellion. Some of the first-time novclisi hammering at of boredom, the desperate need to details - like naming the decisive an old-fashioned typewriter into keep things happening. No wonder battle 'Colden Moor' and using the the guru of computer nerds so many characters are wiped out phrase 'the King over the Water' - everywhere. so rapidly, they are there not hammer home the point a bit too Now, ten years on, here it is because they have any part to play hard, as if Gemmell hasn't made a again in a 'Special Tenth in the structure of the book but full imaginative assimilation of his Anniversary Edition' of'the most because its irresistible momentum material. praised Science Fiction novel of demands a new burst of action. In general, the lines of good the Decade'. One must wonder, There arc no still points, no and evil are too sharply drawn, cynically, if this new hardback moments of quiet within which the especially since I have come to edi1ion hasn't appeared reader can catch her breath or get expect from Gemmell an coincidentally at this time because to know a character. Even the awareness of moral ambiguity HarperCollins lost out to Viking most vivid figures in the book, within the conventions of the for Gibson's most recent book, Case and Molly, are not characters genre. Certainly there are Virtual Lighn After all, in size, but a melange of reactions and ambiguities - decent characters, shape and price it is pretty much a window-dressing (Case the typical . for example, drawn into the evil - burnt-out case rediscovering Vector 13 himself in his old skill, Molly the the computer screen in our own horribly as a child - pointing efficient killer without a past home. ominously into the forest. A lesser whose personality is defined by Neuromancer was the man would run screaming; but black leather and mirrorshadcs). outstanding sf novel of the 1980s Arkady has cast off the By Mona Lisa Overdrive Gibson not because it was the best (there superstitious beliefs of his had slowed the action down to were many better books) but it was childhood for a healthy Victorian give us a sense of something one of the most exciting. In the rationalism, and attributes the outside the pages (but also to underworld and Sprawl it gave us 'hallucination' to 'the stress of reveal a creakiness in the action); a glimpse of a decayed urban travel': 'I am a modem man who Virtual Light is, all round, better landscape we thought we knew, puts his hope in science rather plotted, better characterised and and in cyberspace it gave is a than in God or the Devil'. As the better written (though hampered glimpse of escape. And because it novel progresses, however, his by a much weaker plot device). moved so fast, because at the end naivete begins to seem like blind When you get right down to it, of the book we actually know stupidity - especially when Neuromancer isn't really terribly nothing about these worlds, they contrasted to Mary's growing good: so why is it the one work of can be whatever we want them to fears, confided only to her diary science fiction that stands out from be. In a very real sense, (Covenant with the Vampire is the 1980s? Neuromancer allowed us to dream; composed of extracts from the In part it was because the in a very real sense, Neuromancer journals of pragmatic Arkady, book was written in such a hurried was a dream. sensible Mary and Arkady's sister way. It is a helterskelter of Zsuzsanna, who is mad). Arkady's incident, a breathless rush that fears arc still those of a rationalist feels like it is carrying you away Frances Gordon that the police won't believe him on the sort of wild adventure that Blood Ritual when he reports a servant's sf hadn't actually delivered for Headline, 1994, 340pp, £16.99 disappearance, that the peasants are abusing Uncle VJad's good many years. In this sort of book Wendy Haley the faults deliver more than the nature, that a guest has qualities would have done. The These Fallen Angels accidentally fallen from a high jump cuts and surreal virtual Headline, 1994, 250pp, £16.99 window. Only when he begins to experiences, in reality a sign of Jeanne Kalogridis recall some of his repressed failure of nerve or lack of Covenant with the childhood memories does he technique on the part of the Vampire realise the horror of his situation. author, actually read like a new Headline, 1994, 244pp, £16.99 This is the first in a projected way of storytelling for a new sort Reviewed by Tanya Brown trilogy by Jeanne Kalogridis, a of world. And the timing was 'bestselling American author perfect. As late as the 1970s the It may be coincidence that whose work, published under a overwhelming philosophy of the Headline are publishing three new pseudonym, has been translated computer world was that vampire novels, all by female into seventeen languages'. Any computers belonged in places of authors, just as the film of Anne guesses? Herc's a clue: I don't work, so when John Brunner, for Rice's Interview with the Vampire think it's Anne Rice. Despite a instance, introduced notions of is released. It's neither fair nor blurb which promises an 'erotic, linked computers and viruses in accurate, however, to dismiss them stylish and pagc-tumingly The Shockwave Rider, it was a as pale Anne Rice imitations. terrifying' novel, Covenant is less world that didn't really impinge on Covenant with the Vampire is bloody and sensual by far than his readers beyond the pages of the set in 1845, a prequel to Dracula. Rice's novels. (Granted there's a book. By 1984, on the other hand, It opens as Arkady Tepcsh and his certain amount of biting and computers were finding their way sensible, pregnant English wife sucking, as has come to be de into homes as something other Mary return to his family's rigeur in vampire novels, but it than sophisticated toys. sprawling castle, set in acres of takes more than that to make an Neuromancer took us into a world gloomy forest in the heart of erotic novel). Kalogridis's style is we could begin to feel at our beautiful unspoilt Transylvania. It (deliberately) more reminiscent of fingertips. The glamour of is (of course) a dark and stormy Bram Stoker's as she charts the characters like Case and Molly night, and thejourney gradual descent of Arkady Tepesh was that they were the sort of necessitated by the death of from man of reason to competent action-heroes in the sort Arkady's father - has been long supernatural creature. of mean streets we had read about and tiring. The first person Arkady In contrast to Kalogridis's in Chandler and Hammet, and we sees is his brother - who died measured pace and antique style, could get to be that way through Wendy Haley's These Fallen 14 Vector

Angels reads like a thriller. The of Bosnian refugees, travels to a Alasdair Gray sequel to This Dark Paradise, it is Viennese clinic with Sister Hilary A History Maker set in contemporary Georgia, from the convent where he has Canongale, /994, 11.Jpp. l/3.99 USA, where a vampi re has been nursed as far back to health Reviewed by K . V. Bailey suddenly appeared to stalk the as is feasible. With them is Sister mean, hot streets. Alex Danilov, Catherine, returning to her fami ly 1he thousand-year-old hero, knows home to visit her beloved brother, only that it isn't him; but he has no who is dying. Or so she believes. idea thal the gorgeous and Michael and Hi lary travel to black-hearted Lydia, trapped the Romanian borders in search or inside one of her own wilchy the organisation Tranz., which crystals since the end of the last offers sanctuary 10 the book, is on the loose again. dispossessed. Michael learns of Meanwhile Alex's young nephew Nazi atrocities committed within Justin just wants to settle down, CrnPrag, the Tranz stronghold, marry his pregnant girlfriend and and begins to fo rmulate his own live a normal life; unfortunately theories about the missing refugees his mother, who has been - until Hilary visits CmPrag and gallivanting in Europe for nearly a escapes with tales of something year. has other plans. much older, much da rker and with Alex, surrounded by women a great thirst for blood. (live, dead and undead}, has 10 Meanwhile Catherine has extract himself and those he holds been lured back 10 the familial dear from a bewildering mess of bosom in order to accept the occult events and attempt to heritage she has been attempting It is an ambitious ncn•el that maintain his own sanity. These to e..xorcisc - that of her famous subsumes or imphes a world Fallen Angels is very obviously a ancestress, Elizabeth Bathory, who history within its compass. Davtd sequel: the repeated references to had a taste for the blood of young Wingrove docs it on a global stage the mysterious 'events of a year gi rls. It's a taste that lingers in her over eight volumes; Alasdair Gray before' do nothing 10 advance the descendants. although without the interpretatively attempts it in little plot, though they might increase sexual clement which Elizabeth more than 200 pages. his stage the sales of the previous book as the enjoyed so much. Back in London, shores or a small loch (Saint perplexed reader tries to make the nuns of St. Luke's arc Mary's Loch) in the Ettrick forest, some sense of the characters' begi nning to discover some his point of perception the twenty motivations. Alex is fascinating, unpalatable truths about Tranz, third century. I say but we learn little of his past, and and about Sister Catherine - truths 'interpretatively' because, although his behaviour seems rather foolish the family cannot allow to be he has produced a roystering and for a man (or vampi re} who has rediscovered. often Rabelaisianly funny yam of had a thousand years to learn from This is the goriest of the three battle and its aftermath, of rivalry, his mistakes. Surrounded by ncn-els, and the most sensual; domesticity and seduction, an women, he is almost entirely at Gordon concentrates on the underlying aim is to provide a their mercy in one way or another per\'crse sensuality of blood. rather speculative gloss on the way the - which makes for a sensuous than simply exploring the world has gone and the way it ncn,cl , if not exactly a compelling sexuality of vampires - or humans. might go. In a style pitched read. Elizabeth's descendants aren't between the mock-heroic and the Like Jeanne Kalogridis, strictly vampires; they have a intimate, he follows the working Frances Gordon is best-known for complex relationsh ip with blood, out of ccnain socio-economic her work under another name. rather than the simple physical possibilities. This is made clear at fantasy fans will recognise the addiction of the more 1raditional the outset in a long epigraph, in cheery gruesomeness that vampire. A complex and mature the style of a spoof future distinguishes Bridget Wood's no\'el; of the three, it's closest to encyclopedia, which traces the Celtic novels, beginning with the timbre of Anne Rice's work, change in meaning of the ,.,.urd Woljking. Blood Ritual but with a style and tone which are 'economics' from the ancient demonstrates that she can write refreshingly original. Greek - the an or domestic contemporary horror at least as housekeeping (directly to meet the well as dark fantasy. Michael householder's needs) - to the Devlin. a journalist who lost his political use of it by British sight while investigating the fate Vector 15 governments to mean 'the art of product. Ettrick women, as well as glance at a third way of life keeping their bankers, brokers and being 'housemothers', are common to this future world - that rich supporters supplied with musicians, sculptors and the like; of the 'gangrel', the archetypal money'. A futher emphasis is some of the men, on the other gypsy or traveller. present in the acknowledgement of hand, may be artists, gurus, Finally. a word of indebtedness to Margaret Mead's teachers or planetary seeders, but commendation for the interspersed Coming ofAge in Samoa, her field others are completely engrossed in thematic designs: witty, effective study of a 'kindlier society'. war games which produce in their repetition and perfectly The structure of the novel is mendable casualties, even placed. intriguing. The main narrative is fatalities, but which inherit an autobiographical printout something of the energy and composed by Wat Dryhope but aggression-sublimating nature of Robert Jordan written in the third person and put team sports. Lord of Chaos by him into the care of his mother, The book opens on the third Orbit, I 994, 90 I pp, £ J6. 99 day of a set battle between Ettrick Kate. Kate adds the Prologue and Reviewed by Vikki Lee Postscript, and also the 'Notes and and Northumbria United which Glossary Explaining Obscurities', will determine possession of an The books get bigger and bigger. a quarter of the text. In part this iconic standard. Ettrick face Jordan's sixth book in the Wheel elucidates lowland Scottish words certain defeat until a cheating of Time series, Lord o/ Chaos, strategem carried out by the chief and phrases 'liable to ramfeezle takes the whole story past the 4000 Sassenachs', in part it explains protagonist, Wat Dryhope, page mark so far. 'what those who ken little of the occasions a massacre but saves the Continuing on from the end of past may find bumbazing'. These standard. Wat himself believes the book five, Rand al'Thor, The Notes carry a strong authorial stratagem was a foul, but when it Dragon Reborn, struggles on with is unexpectedly approved by the ideological burden, though they his task of uniting the nations in are given legitimate fictive context UEFA-like Geneva regulators he preparation for the Last Battle at by Kate's remark that, for finds himself unwillingly hailed as which, it is fortold, he will be both posterity's sake, although the notes a hero. This in tum sets off a wave hero and anti-hero. His mastery of are about (her) immediate present, of world-infecting militarism the One Power continues apace, as they 'are put into the past tense, (linked semi-metaphorically to a do his struggles against the since the present soon will be'. transmissable virus) with Dryhope madness said to take all men who We, the readers, of course, are as its vector, his machoism can channel it. The voice of Lcws only experiencing the author's fostered by a cybemetically Therin, called Kinslayer for his purely imaginary future while sophisticated seductress who part in the near total destruction of recognising that its foundations lie designs to bring down the rustic, the world at the last Last Battle in his, and our, real present and peaceful status quo. But Dryhopc thousands of years before, common past, which gives a is a divided man, guilt-ridden, continues to try and take control of distinctly metafictional flavour to both lustful and an ambivalent Rand's thoughts and actions in an the novel. I do recommend misgynist. He becomes tom attempt to get it right second time attention to those Notes, they are between the reactionary pull of around. not crude infodump but are war games escalating towards a Both factions of the divided integral to the work. recrudescent nationalism and, at Aes Sedai, women who can The world they present, the the other extreme, the way of the channel the One Power (without perspective they offer, is defined, 'Henwife' who even eschews the risk of going mad of course), start in a long analysis of succesive powerplant and can survive its sending their envoys to Rand. But ideologies and historiographies, as impairment. it seems they only seek to control 'Modem', which succeeds the There is a brilliant climax as him, these tricksy people are not to 'Marxist' and the 'Postmodern'. the standard is restored and be trusted and stubborn old Rand This future Modem period is one opposed choices become a matter wouldn't trust them anyway even if in which 'the open intelligence for decision. Which wins? There they could be - they are women network and powerplants made follows a resolving postscript, the after all, a completely cities, nations, money and details of which I'll leave obscure incomprehensible and alien race. industrial powers obsolete'. The save to say that Gray (in the voice Nynacve and Elayne learn, story's microcosm of this is the of Kate Dryhope) manages to during a visit to the dream world Ettrick community, sustained by expunge discordant elements from of Tel'aran'rhiod, of a ter'angreal its 'powerplant', a universal his 'utopia' and at the same time to (a magical remnant from the past) conucopia for food and every kind reflect a nostalgia for the that can revert the abnormal of raw material and synthesised anti-conformist and to cast a last 16 Vector weather paucm of increasing and seems to be making much less of door to the neighbourhood psycho cxcrutiating heat, drought and this than he has in the past, - and we all know what psychos famine, back to i1s more normal although trulh to tell . I think his like to do. (If you're in a ny doubt.. pallem. An unexpected promotion characters are too busy to have Quake is most instructive on this to Aes Sedai proper enables them time to constantly debate such point). It's all here: sex. violence to plot their way to the city of mundane things. and even a little love. albeit Ebou Dar in search of it. It may be because we are between the two teenage stars Egwcnc continues her getting near to the end of the (perhaps refl ecting the novels education with the Wisc Ones of series that the talc seems to have intended market). the Aiel until she receives a developed a sense of urgency. It's Set in disaster-lorn LA and summons to return to Salidar, getting grittier. and the threats and peopled " ith all those weirdocs so temporary home of her faction of dangers to the various charac1ers beloved or low-budget American the sundered Aes Scdai White are taking a more believably horror movies. it's like a Tower. Instead of the punishment serious tum. lord o/Chao.s is an contemporary lord of the Flies she c.xpccts to receive fo r absolute page-lumer tha1 begins to but without the subtext to drag it masquerading as Aes Scdai whilst reward those \\ilh dcdica1ion down. Layman displays a pretty still only a novice. she is raised to enough to have followed the series crude, pessimistic view of the a position beyond her grandest so far. I await the next book world: the rule of law is the only cspectations. eagerly, and will even forgive thing that keeps the lid on society. Perin Aybara , conspicuous for Jordan if he joins that elite band or If we don't have a criminal j ustice his absence in book fi ve, returns fantasy authors with verbal system and a police force and. \\'ith a vengeance - leading the diarrhoea who break the most of all, a government to legendary bowmen of the Two thousand-page barrier. but only on structure and order our lives; if all Rivers to war for the first time in a one condition - that it is the last in this were wiped away by a disaster thousand years, whilst Matt the series and that he brings it all of some kind {say, an earthquake). Cauthen (the third of the original to a satisfactory conclusion. (0 .K. then society ,1,ould just fa ll aparL three friends from the Two Rivers) So that's 1wo conditions, but who's We would all disintegrate into the continues his struggle against counting?) muggers, murderers and rapists involveme nL in all the madness, that lie at the heart of us all Don't becoming the greatest general the you believe it. world has ever known in the Richard Layman process. Quake Tanith Lee This vast, sprawling tale has Headline, 1995, 375pp, £16.99 A Heroine of the World finally, to my mind, gained a sense Reviewed by Stephen Payne Headline, 1994, 375pp, £16.99 of direction. Although it has been Reviewed by Andy Mills clear since Book One that the end Earthquakes arc a messy business. result will be the Last Battle, Take the Banner family. When the This novel was first published in Jordan has never really convinced earthquake hits (as they say), Clint the United States in 1989. Why it me that he knew how to get the Banner is caught at work narrow!)' has taken five years to sec the light talc the.re. So many threads, so avoiding the tumbling walls of his or day in Britain, goodness onl}' many plots, subplots and office. Sheila Banner. his wife, is knows. lt is a mar..-cllous book: deceptions, seemed 10 consLantly 1rapped in the bathtub as her house rich, poetic, romantic. The only keep the story running parallel to, crashes down around her. And reason I can think of for the delay rather than heading towards a Barbara, thei r daughter, is out in publication is that it falls desired finale. I don't really know taking a driving a lesson. The awkwardly between genre how Jordan has kept hold of all 'quake' erupts on page 7 and the categories. Set in imaginary lands, this, but he is pull ing it all remainder of the book recounts the it is a fantasy, but if Lee had together now, and grippingly so. trials and tribulations of these chosen eighteenth century Europe For some reason, although still three characters through the as her locale, it could more easily there in plenty, the irritating aftermath and on to their final be termed a historical romance. interactions between the male and reconciliation. But never mind the nomenclature, female characters in previous For Clinl and Barbara this is a feel the quality. volumes no longer seem to annoy story of adventure and barbarism A Heroine of the World is the or distract the reader from what's as they make their way home story of Aradia. When we fi rst goi ng on. Could it be that that the across the remains of LA. For meet her she is thirteen years old, sexes are learning to understand Sheila it is a story of survival as, and a young thirteen at that. By each other after six chunky yes, you guessed it, she lives next the time the book ends she is volumes? Not at all, Jordan just Vector 17 seventeen, an old seventeen, a Tanith Lee has created a superb Metcalf refuses to deliver he's woman whose life has been turned book which thoroughly deserves fired. Then Stanhunt turns up upside down and inside out. At the your time dead. beginning, in a society which The main suspect approaches seems to be middlc•European Metcalf in desperation to help him salted with a touch of ancient Jonathan Lethem clear his name, and the Rome, Aradia's father and mother Gun with Occasional Music investigator sets out to discover the go off to war. It's an adventure to NEL, 1995, 262pp, £4.99 truth behind the crime, despite the them, it seems; meanwhile they Reviewed by Mark Plummer fact that several other parties seem leave their child in the care of her determined to keep him out of the cold aunt. The aunt isn't interested affair. This is all traditional in Aradia, nor Aradia in her; the hard•boilcd stuff, delivered in an girl keeps to her room. But e\•ents r;;.™N .. impressive noir tone. take a further turn for the worst However, this conventional when the war against Kronia goes '-' it l~'ty ·'° crime story plot is set in a bleak wrong. Aradia becomes an orphan, OCCt1;SIONA~ future world where evef)•body the aunt dies, and the house snorts their own blend of 'make', a becomes a billet for a Kronian powdered drug containing a general who likes his girls young. MUSIC , combination of ingredients such as When the occupying army is Forgettol, Acceptol, Regrettol, but forced to quit the City, he takes always with Addictol, mixed lo the Aradia with him. The retreat desired proportions of the user, It becomes a rout as the Kronian is a world full of genetically army battles not only its enemies evolved animals, so when Metcalf but also the weather. says 'I pulled over to the curb and Aradia loses not only her bought an evening edition of the country but her name (Ara, Aara, Oakland Photographic from a Ayaira - she is redefined as her crabby old goat working a circumstances change) and her news·stand' it's not entirely clear language. It is the start of a series A novel like this really had to be whether he's speaking of adventures - physical, political published as a paperback original; metaphorically. Metcalf himself is and spiritual - from which she it just wouldn't look right as a more accurately a private learns and grows. Desired by hardcover. The cover has been inquisitor, licensed to ask some, hated by others, she designed to make the edges look questions by his former employers, becomes a survivor. And the tatty, even while the book remains The Inquisitor's Office, who arc ending of this rollercoaster ride is pristine - a wonderful piece of not too keen on his activities and as dramatic a cliffhanger as you pulp imagery by a (regrettably) who are possibly involved in the could ask for ... uncredited artist. conspiracy behind Stanhunt's So - this is a rite of passage. It Jonathan Lethem's first novel murder. The inhabitanls of this is also a story told by an artist, for fuses two genres: science fiction society carry Karmic Cards, Lee is just that. She paints her and detective story. This is hardly displaying the owner's current pictures in prose, and tells her tale a novelty, as Robert K.J. Killheffer karmic level, which can be in a rich, evocative language points out in Fantasy and Science electronically docked by the which brings every scene to life: Fiction (December I 994): the Inquisitor's Office for real or the horrors of a starvation march genres share a common origin in perceived infringements. Metcalfs through snow contrasted, later, the pulp magazines, and a level is getting pretty low, and with the pleasure of seeing a fertile founding father in Edgar Allan when your karma drops to zero ... land in bloom. Lee's characters too Poe. Here the detective element is It's probably not giving are, for the most part, ambiguous: conventional. A private anything away to say that Metcalf if Aradia is a heroine, the men investigator, Conrad Metcalf, manages to bring the whole affair with whom she engages are not works out of a run-down office to a tidy resolution in best heroes; even her love, Thenser, her suite shared with a dentist. He has detective story fashion, yet the only link to her childhood, is as been engaged on a domestic science fictional clements are much sinner as sinned against. As surveillance matter by Maynard central and don't just provide a with Aradia, he is shaped by fate Stanhunt, to check out the colourful backdrop. This is an and struggles to make sense of the activities of Stanhunt's wife. But impressive debut, humorous in world, but in a much different Stanhunt expects a bit more than places and unashamed of its pulp way. Whether fantasy or romance, some routine spying and when 18 Vector

Colinda discovers, and disappears Harbours and War Among the roots, yet with a gritty modem into, a patch of almost pure colour. Angels. But. to be honest. I'm not feel. But Jack is unready: he holds back rca1ly 1empted to pursue it. from following, and thus loses her - Later, with Sam and Rose von Michael Moorcock Bek, and with the aid of the Melanie Rawn Blood semi-human machinoix Sam is Skybowl Millenium, /995, 247pp, ll5.99, involved with, Jack resolves to go Macmillan, /995. 672pp. £15.99 pb [9.99 tn search of his lost love. At this Reviewed by Vikki Lee Rcviewro by Steve Jeffrey point the novel veers alarmingly into a second section that appeared SJ.ybowl is the third and final Quite what Moorcock is up to in in New Worlds as the rather silly volume in the Dragon Star trilogy this novel, subtitled A Southern space opera/comic 'Corsai rs of the which follows on from Rawn's Fantasy, remains something of a Second Ether', b)' Warwick Colvin hugely popular Dragon Prince mystery. It is, essentially, a fix-up Jnr. This is almost trilogy. Generations of peace, novel, comprising parts of incomprehensible in its confusing intcruptcd only by sporadic Moorcock:'s named and cast of characters and races, political machmations and pseudonymous contributions to the striplings, skim.lings, swiplings attempted take-over bids by Dave Garnett incarnation of New and bu.mes, all engaged in a renegade sorcerers. has finally Worlds. The first eleven chapters baffling exotic quest bctwcc:n the been shattered by a barbarian race arc, indeed, almost wholly lifted forces of Chaos and Singularity for from across the ocean: a dark force from the short story 'Colour' in the Lost Universe of Ko-0-Ko. Or bent on revenge and total New Worlds l . This first section something. I really couldn't make conquest. The invading Vellant'im introduces a select band of very much out of this mish-mash army is massing for the final push jugaderos, high rolling gamblers of names and alliances at all. But, that will utterly defeat the people and players in a complex game of we are invited to believe, this of the Desert. High Prince Pol skill and chance. In this world cartoon world of Captains struggles to find a way o~bea~ng 'colour', a tapping into the fabric Billy-Bob Begg. Horace Quel~h the invaders, while rescuing his of the Universe itself, has been and Pearl Peru, is somehow linked wife, the High Princess Meiglan, mined for its promise of infinite to the game the jugadors play for who is a prisoner of the energy, but it has broken out, such high stakes. To the extent VellanL'im's High Warlord. releasing chaos across the that, as Moorcock tries to weld As if Pol hasn't got enough landscape. As a result, technology these disparate and seemingly problems, he also has to find a way fails, transport and incompatible plot lines together, of enlisting the aid of Andry, Lord communications are thrown back the various players arc obliged to of Goddess Keep and Lord of the to an age of giant riverboats, enter their own game and take on Sunrunners, for only their padd1e steamers that travel the the personae of the champions of combined powers hold any hope of Mississippi from New Orleans to Chaos and Singularity to complete victory. Andry proves to be the Memphis. It is only at the the game. It's the old Entropy most difficult obstacle. Although gamblers' haven of the :enninal Tango over again, with Chaos and on the same side as Pol, Andry's Cafe. sited on the chaotic maw of Order in the new (and rather 'new broom' approach to decades the original Biloxi Fault, thal unconvincing) dressing of fractal of Sunrunner tradition and law electricity still functions in the geometrics and chaos theory, with means that the Sunrunncrs can no glare of neon lighls and the the Mandelbrot Set as an infinite longer be counted on for support elcctrok bands that play the club. board game. At this point it all without 'strings'. Andry has There is a second thread to got very silly, with Moo~k embarked on a crusade to eradicate 'colour'. In this collapsed world, tracking the game as a scnes of all Sorcerers, the ancient enemy of the despised 'whiteys' arc now the mO\'CS counters and eventual the sunrunncrs, and has found a scrvani class. The jugadors, Jack sacrifi~ that resolve the game in way to justify using Sunrunning to Karaquazian, Colinda Dovero and Cosmic Balance. It smacks a little kill them: Sunrunner Golden Rule Sam Qakenhurst are the new of Through the Looking Glass or number 1 - thou shalt not kill aristocracy. The games they play Jeff Noon's Vurt, but without the using Sunrunningl Pol , by a at the Terminal Cafe involve the saving humour or the familiarity convoluted and cruel set of creation and manipulation of of the rules and structure. Or, if it circumstances explained in the entire virtual worlds, charged had either, then I'm afraid it all Dragon Prince trilogy, is a somehow by the intense went rather beyond me. There are, Sorcerer as v,-cll as a Sun.runner. possibilities from the Fault. On an apparently, 10 be two further This is known only to a very select expedition upriver with Jack, \'Olumes to this talc, Fabulous Vector 19 group of trusted family and friends Ed Regis testimony before a US senate and is not even fully understood by Nano! commission. Pol himself at th.is stage. It is Pol's Bantam Press, /995, 307pp, In this exploration of the powers as a Sorcerer/Sunrunner as l/6.99 young scientist's motivations \\'CII as Andry's pov.-ers of Reviewed by Simon Bisson (Drexler is not yet 40), Regis Sunrunning that are needed to returns again and again to the combine in order to defeat the We're all familiar with the Club of Rome's pessimistic Vellant'im. futurological study The limits To machines that both make up and At the start of Skybow/ is a manufacture our 20th century Growth. Here is the heart of summary of the first two books in world The engines of industry are Drexler's dreams - a desire 10 save this trilogy, Stronghold and large and visible. Now 1ake a step the world from stasis and decay. Dragon Token. This is in the form into tomorrow, where a box in I.he But nanotechnology isn't an of a list of casualties, who died, comer of the room provides all instant techno-fix, and Regis isn't and where. Not having read how your daily needs. Tomorrow's afraid to show the dangers of the the previous two volumes, but technology, amongst them the engines of creation are going to be having read the Dragon Prince possibility so small as to be invistble: the of a world eating swarm trilogy, I chose n01 to read this nanotechnological dreams of the of rogue nanomachines. first in case ii gave too much young American scientist K. Eric The controversial nature of nanotechnology means that away. I'm still not sure whether or Drexler. Nanotechnology is the not this was a mistake. I thought science of molecular machines: Drex.Jer has many vocal critics Rawn's constant updates on who is molecules moulded into devices across many different fields, and related to whom would help me to that can manipulate individual Nano/ is happy to look at their ideas as as Drexler's keep track, but I forgot to allow for atoms. If Drexler is to be believed, well 1he amazing fecundity of her nanotechnology promises a future supporters. As There are many physical obstacles to the female characters. References to of unlimited plenty and almost people who died. whom I didn'I eternal life. His is a possible future development of nanomachines and even know had been born, were that could exceed the tx>undarics Regis uses the criticisms to plead often confusing., but frequently of even the wildest science for more rc.5CarCh into the gave Rawn an excuse to indulge in fictional speculations. problems and their possible an obvious passion of hers - the Ed Regis is a science writer solutions. Drexler's conflicts with family tree! This passion reached fascinated by the fringes of science heterodox science make interesting orgasmic proportions at one point and technology. His previous book, reading, and their resolutions and when a spirit trapped in a Great Mambo Chicken And The explanations cast light onto the sorcerous mirror turns out to be Transhuman Condition, was a mechanisms that drive the physical sciences. Of course no the perfect opportunity to attach voyage through the wilder names down the full length of a Californian extremes of science - modem day work of scientific Giant Redwood. from c1Jogenically frozen heads to journalism, especially one dealing with the physical sciences, can Despite the huge list of the strange edges of advanced characters in all of Rawn's books robotics. With Nano/ Regis is escape the obligatory reference to and the seeming plot device of 'l'IJ Richard Feynman. In Nano!, focusing in. pointing his need another few characters soon journalistic microscope at the however, Feynman's place is so someone should have some developing science of molecular deserved: in a nine~ys wonder the 1950s Feynman more kids'. she weaves an nanotechnology. Like his fellow speech in engaging talc of war, passion and science journalist James Gleick, challenged scientists to think politics. Skybow/ is a pagNumer. Regis uses the tool of biography to about constructing atomic scale The tale is made complex by all explore the history of a science. In devices. Twenty years later, that the little family sub-plots, but the acclaimed Genius Gleick used speech encouraged DrexJer to Rawn never loses her grip on all Richard Feynman's life to publish his early nanotechnology these strands and brings them all illustrate the development of speculations. together for an interesting and quantum electro-dynamics, with Regis's Nano! is an al the somewhat surprising end. I shall Nano! Regis explores the short entertaining look go back and read the other two history of nanotechnology in development of whal could be a volumes sometime because, tandem with the life of its prophet truly revolutionary science, one that has inspired many all.hough I think this book stands and lheorist, Drexler, from his recent alone well enough, I'd like to know early days as part of Gerard works of sfby authors spanning more of the whole. O'NeiU's space study group, to his I.he alphabet from Poul Anderson to George Zebrowski. This book is a worthy overview of a complex 20 Vector topic, giving a solid grounding in Bet"'-ecn the Ga laxies' arc among have they both blown. So, as you the scientific background of the least successful in the volume. might expect, they do. There is, nanotechnology, and the interested I often feel that 'experimental' however, a 101 more to it than that. reader can then take the next step fiction is more for the writer than For the Mauna Pele resort is built into Drexler's own works: the 1he reader and rather resent having on the site of ancient Hawaiian polemical The Engines Of it forced upon me. fishponds and a petroglyph Creation and his textbook of High points, on the other (rock-carving) field. a place sacred molecular nanotechnology, hand, include 'In Entropy's Jaws', 10 the volcano goddess Pele. It is, Nanosystems. an assured talc of time/reality as one of the characters points out , breakdown caused by lightspeed the old space travel and 'This is the Road' hotel-built-on-an-Indian-burial Robert Silverberg which tells of a spiritual journey, ground story. By the time the story Beyond the Safe Zone both literal and metaphorical. I opens, six people have vanished HarpuCollins, /994, 605pp, also enjoyed the humorous Toe mysteriously, body parts tum up £6.99 Dybbuk ofMazcl Tov IV'; on the golf course, and the guests ReviC\\•ed by Benedict Cullum Silverberg has a dry, ironic touch arc staying away in droves. that can be most effecti ve. Notable To this island come two The third volume in Silverberg's omissions of much anthologised travellers, both American women. 'Collected Stories', this collection stories from both the beginni ng The first is Eleanor Perry, a ostensibly covers the period 1968 and the end of this period include history teacher following the tratl to 1974, when. after completing 'Passengers' and 'Born with the of her Aunt who, in the previous the novel Shadroch in the Dead'. century, travelled to Hawaii in the Furnace, he stopped writing sf Having read half a dozen of company of Samuel Langhorne until his return to the genre with his novels I know that Silverberg Clements, better known as Mark lord Valentine's Castle in 1980. is a versatile and highly Twain. Aunt Kidder's diary is Despite the period covered, accomplished writer. At this point Eleanor's guide. The second is however, 14 of the 26 stories in his career, though, he was Cordie Stumpf, who won an included here are from 1972-73. writing almost entirely on all-expenses-paid trip to the Already known for his recurrent commission, and his notes indicate Mauna Pelc and doesn't sec why a themes of millenial madnes and/or that he found it hard going. For few disappearances and the alienation, it is probably unwise to those particularly interested in owner's general obnoxiousness attribute the disenchanted lone of Silverberg's work - or in the art of should put her off her holiday. some of these talcs exclusively to writing generally - this is a The disappearances build up. Silverberg's then markedly worthwhile collection. But the first A man vanishes from his office negative feelings towards sf. It was two volumes in this series, when through a blood-spattered crack in during this period. however, that Silverberg was ploughing a more the wall. A giant dog with human he produced the highly regarded fertile furrow, might prove an teeth appears on the petroglyph novel Dying Inside about a easier read. field with a human hand in its telepath gradually losing his gill .. mouth. A weird figure, half-shark, The candid notes which half-man, attacks a child in the introduce each story are of Dan Simmons sea. The gods and demons of interest, and they positively shine Fires of Eden ancestral Hawaii arc awake, and when compared to 1he more Headline, /994, 375pp. ll6.99 are they pissed off. Woken from self-serving offerings of his fellow Reviewed by Chris Amies their slumber, Pele the volcano highly-anthologised-muJti-award goddess and Kamapua'a the winn.ing-but-troubled writer, The versatile Simmons, author of hog-god resume their ancient Harlan Ellison. The period of the Hyperion and Ca"ion Comfort, is fight, though since Kamapua'a collection covers the New Wave in full horror mode in his latest raped Pele centuries before, the and, classing certain of his works novel. Byron Trumbo, American fight is no longer in balance. as 'fragmentary and elliptical', millionnairc and full-time Kamapua'a has a control over Silverberg does not seek to degenerate, has built an expensive Hawaii which is aided by the disassociate himself from that resort between the volcanoes of rapacity of the haoles (foreigners) movement. For this reader, Kilauea and Mauna Loa on to obliterate the old ways. 'You though, the nonlinear stories such Hawaii . One or other of these and I are alike,' he tells Trumbo. as 'Breckenridge and the volcanoes is generally active at 'We were born to dominate. Born Continuum', 'The Science Fiction any given time; but not since to subdue.' So it is hardly Hall of Fame' and 'Schwartz 1868, we arc informed solemnly, surprising that the hog-god (who appears as a gigantic pig with Vector 21

sharp teeth and eight eyes) offers as elsewhere in Oceania. there was Taridwyn. guilt-wracked that the 10 do a deal with Trumbo; and a heavily stratified society where 'chaos drive' which brought them almosl surprising when Lhe despotic kings ruled with the here may have destroyed Burdania billionnaire contemptuously assistance of secret societies sworn as they left, generations before. refuses. to the worship of one or 01hcr of Among them is Lian, left aphasic Sometimes the research tends the many gods. The missionaries by an accident, constantly to overwhelm Lhe narrative. had already started their crusade to struggling with memory and Simmons never wastes research wipe oul the old ways, some of language, and deeply alienated and will probably get a few more which were barbaric, while others from homcworld, colony, his very stories out of his Hawaiian studies were better than anything that identity. Nevertheless, panly ('once having found such a rich replaced them. through his unique closeness to the vein, had no intention of n01 This is partly a fable of male Kinder'el'ein, Taridwyn's native mining it to death', as he has dominance over the world, and sentient race, and panly through Clemens say). The vast amount of partly of its corollary, the his friendship with Thovalt, Lian Hawaiian vocabulary, names of unremitting Americanisation of becomes central to a move to gods and spirits, quotes from Hawaii. At first the deaths and convince the colony to .sanction an ancestral chants, and long disappearances arc attributed to expedition to Burdania. descriptions of the mechanisms of Ha"'-aiian separatists, whose In the ocld-numbered chapters ,,oJcanic action. do tend 10 pump representative. the giant Jimmy Lian and his companions arrive at up the word count. We don't need Kalekili, makes a convenient a Burdania less ecologically to know 1he temperature of lava or suspect. The Hawaiian separatists damaged than they feared. Lian is Lhc commonly-repeated factoid are no figment of Simmons's drawn into a small group of thal Mauna Loa is actually the imagination; they see no reason 'restorers' who are working around highest mountain on Earth why their country. which is the site of a now flawed archive in (32,000 feet. but most of it is nowhere near the United States. the hope of finding knowledge lost under water). The cultural should be pan of the USA . The in the disaster and the references however are another supernatural aspects are, however, anti-technology purges which matter. Because it is a society unambiguous. There are ancient followed. Passing for a traveller, which is both real and very little spirits awake and ravaging the Lian begins a tentative romance known in the West, a lot of land; Pelc and Kamapua'a arc with the autocratic, self-confessed c.'