Vector The critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association Fairy Tales of Victorian Science and Technology No. 270 LATE SPRING 2012 £4.001 Vector 270 The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association ARTICLES BSFA Reviewers’ Poll – The Best of 2011 Vector Edited by Martin Lewis .......................... 4 http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com 2011 in Pictures Features, Editorial Shana Worthen Jonathan McCalmont ............................ 17 and Letters: 127 Forest Road, Loughton, Essex IG10 1EF, UK From Outcasts to Black Mirror: British [email protected] SF Television 2011 Book Reviews: Martin Lewis Alison Page .......................................... 21 14 Antony House, Pembury Place, London, E5 8GZ Gaia Beware: Infertility in Science Production: Martin McGrath Fiction due to Bioterrorism, Pollution [email protected] and Accidental Iatrogenic Events British Science Fiction Association Ltd Victor Grech with Clare Thake-Vassallo The BSFA was founded in 1958 and is a non-profitmaking and Ivan Callus .................................... 26 organisation entirely staffed by unpaid volunteers. 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THE BSFA REVIEW Life membership £500 Outside UK £40 In this issue Adam Roberts reviews Joint/family membership Add £2 to the above prices The Weird, Shaun Green looks at small Cheques (Sterling only) should be made payable to “BSFA Ltd” press novellas, Maureen Kincaid Spellar and sent to Peter Wilkinson at the address above or join via the considers Danish SF, Dan Hartland reads BSFA website at www.bsfa.co.uk. FOCUS: THE BSFA MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS a book of essays on Stanislaw Lem, Paul Editor: Martin McGrath Kincaid discusses Kim Lakin-Smith’s debut [email protected] novel and much more .......................... 43 BSFA AWARDS Administrator: Donna Scott Published by the BSFA Ltd ©2012 .... ISSN 05050448 [email protected] ORBITER WRITING GROUPS All opinions expressed are those of the individual Online: Terry Jackman contributors and not BSFA Ltd except where expressly [email protected] stated. Copyright of indivdual articles remains with the author. Torque Control ne of my New Year’s resolutions was to read lots of 2012 books this year. Yet here it is, weeks later, and OI’m mostly just reading books from last year. It’s all those shiny award shortlists, you see, and the concomitant discussions of what were some of the most interesting books of the previous year. I’m halfway through reading the BSFA Award best novel shortlist, and want to finish in time to be a well-informed voter. Then the Clarke Award shortlist and the Hugo shortlists will be out, and so large swathes of the year slip away without ever reading the books currently coming out. This issue of Vector won’t help you much with material published in 2012, but it will hopefully prove a helpful to guiding your reading and watching of material which came out in 2011 (and earlier). On the next page, you’ll find the results of the annual BSFA Reviewers’ Poll, a top-ten of recommended 2011 publications. Top tens are a bit of a theme in this issue: Jonathan McCalmont tells what what his top ten SF films of 2011 are, and in his regular column, Stephen Baxter shares his current (often-changing) top ten short stories. Vector’s reviewers reflect on the best books they read in 2011, works not always published in that year. Alison Page surveys the best of SF television which appeared on British screens last year, contextualized by how broad an audience each reached, while Jonathan McCalmont argues for what 2011 SF films he thinks are most worth seeking out. © Mega11 | Dreamstime.com In his regular column, Terry Martin reviews recent comics. This time, he also asks for some feedback on just what it is Vector readers would like to see in the way of comics advice. deeply with the readings this! Should he be focusing more on “popular” comics, a guide to This issue also contains the third and last installment of what’s currently big in the field, to help educate BSFA members Victor Grech’s series on human reproduction and science in what’s happening in that field? Or are members more fiction, this time focusing on the consequences of infertility interested in an eclectic, wide-ranging set of recommendations caused by bioterrorism, pollution, and other sources of which are likely to focus on more obscure comics? disease. He speculates that the now-common appearance of There are also two thought-provoking pieces on aspects terrorism in SF is a product of the “War on Terror”, but it’s of fairy in this issue. Melanie Keene looks at the use of the clear from the broad trends shown by Google’s ngram viewer term “science fiction” as it pre-dates reference to the genre that the term really took off after 9/11. This was also reflected, we know by that name, when it referred to “fairy tales of more anecdotally, in the increasing use of the concept in the science”, a popular theme for science instruction and scientific best SF novels by women we read this last year on the Torque marketing in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, as she Control blog. demonstrates. Andy Sawyer, meanwhile, examines the short Finally, of course, there’s the BSFA Review, with a wide story collection Kingdoms of Elfin, by the overlooked author assortment of books reviewed for your delectation. Sylvia Townsend Warner, who deserves as much attention as None of this helps me with my project of reading 2012 books her contemporaries, Hope Mirlees and Lord Dunsany. though; instead, this issue of Vector has provided me with an Paul Kincaid’s exploration of a Steven Millhauser story ever-lengthening list of compelling works from previous years doubles as an analysis of what the otherwise-rare use of the to read and watch. first person plural voice does to the framing of a story. Kincaid As always, your letters of comment are encouraged. We’re taught the uncomfortable story of “The Disappearance of always glad to hear from our readers, whether you’d like to Elaine Coleman” when he was an SFF Criticism Masterclass comment on an article, or volunteer to write for us. You can tutor, and revisits it now that it’s been republished in a reach Vector at [email protected]. collection of Millhauser’s short fiction. Hopefully those of you SHANA WORTHEN taking this year’s Criticism Masterclass will engage at least as EDITOR 3 BSFA Reviewers’ Poll The best of 2011 Martin Lewis don’t think anyone was surprised by Ian McDonald’s victory quietly grow and grow. The title story was shortlisted this year, in the first Vector reviewers’ poll last year. The Dervish House could she win this time? Ireceived pretty much universal acclaim, won comprehensively Despite being the runner up of last year’s poll for New and then went on to take the BSFA Model Army, Adam Roberts missed Award for best novel. Some years there out on a place on the BSFA Award is a book that just seems to capture the REVIEWERS’ POLL 2011 shortlist having previously made critical and popular consensus. In 2011, it in 2009 for Yellow Blue Tibia. In however, there were two: Embassytown 1. The Islanders by Christopher Priest 2011, he turned this on its head by by China Miéville and The Islanders by Embassytown by China Miéville securing a place for By Light Alone Christopher Priest. on the shortlist whilst dropping to 3. God’s War by Kameron Hurley These two very different novels sixth in the poll. With Embassytown by much admired authors were both 4. Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyemi and The Islanders both in contention shortlisted for this year’s BSFA Award for the award, it seems unlikely that and, as soon as I opened the poll, votes 5. The Silver Wind by Nina Allen he has a chance of winning it this started coming in thick and fast from 6. By Light Alone by Adam Roberts year but I wouldn’t bet against him the reviewers. Miéville came sixth last for the future. Directly underneath year with Kraken, a novel I liked a lot but 7. Osama by Lavie Tidhar Roberts was another BSFA Award which was generally seen as the author contender: Osama by Lavie Tidhar. 8. SF Encyclopaedia (3rd edition beta), blowing off steam. Embassytown was Although not Tidhar’s first novel, this meatier fare, his first ‘proper’ science edited by John Clute, David Langford was definitely his breakout book and fiction novel, a return to the ambition of and Peter Nicholls raises expectations for the future. 2009’s The City and The City (which won 9. The Kings Of Eternity by Eric Brown (This also means that Cyber Circus by the BSFA Award and the Arthur C Clarke Kim Lakin-Smith - reviewed by Paul Award). As Paul Graham Raven put it in 10. A Dance With Dragons by George RR Kincaid on page 52 - was the only Vector #268 “Embassytown is good, but Martin novel on the shortlist not to appear it is not easy; it partakes of the tools of on the poll.) genre, but it does so in ways that are The third edition of the SF unusual or even antithetical to the conventions of genre.” Encyclopaedia, edited by John Clute, David Langford and Peter Priest, on the other hand, hadn’t published a novel since Nicholls, was made available online for free through Gollancz in 2002’s The Separation (which also won both the BSFA Award October.