Vector The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association WAR IN SF #258 Winter 2008 £4.00 Vector 258 The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association Contents The British Science Fiction Association Torque Control 3 President Stephen Baxter Letters 4 Chair Tony Cullen H.G. Wells’s The War Of The Worlds 5 [email protected] as a Controlling Metaphor for the Twentieth Century Treasurer Martin Potts By Stephen Baxter 61 Ivy Croft Road, Warton Near Tamworth ‘The Menace of War’: Einstein, Freud and SF 12 By James Holden B79 0JJ [email protected] After Heinlein: Politics in Scalzi’s Green Soldier Membership Peter Wilkinson Universe 17 Services 39 Glyn Avenue, New Barnet By Martin McGrath Herts., EN4 9 PJ The Flowers of War 23 [email protected] By Nick Hubble Membership fees First Impressions 29 UK £26p.a., or £18 p. a. (unwaged), or £28 edited by Kari Sperring p.a. (joint/family memberships) Transmission, Interrupted 52 Outside UK £32 4: We Can Build You By Saxon Bullock The BSFA was founded in 1958 and is a non-profitmaking organisation entirely staffed by unpaid volunteers. Foundation Favourites 56 Registered in England. Limited by guarantee. Company Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison No. 921500 By Andy Sawyer Registered address: 61 Ivy Croft Road, Warton, Near Resonances: Hitler Wins 57 Tamworth, B79 0JJ By Stephen Baxter Website http://www.bsfa.co.uk The New X: Wings of Song 59 By Graham Sleight Orbiter writing groups Contact Gillian Rooke Vector website: http://www.vector-magazine.co.uk Southview, Pilgrims Lane Editor’s blog: http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com Chilham, Kent CT4 8AB Vector Features, Editorial Niall Harrison and Letters: 73 Sunderland Avenue Oxford Other BSFA publications OX2 8DT Focus: The writer’s magazine of the BSFA Book Reviews: Kari Sperring Editor Martin McGrath 19 Uphall Road 48 Spooners Drive, Cambridge Park Street, CB1 3HX St Albans, AL2 2HL Production: Liz Batty [email protected] [email protected] Anna Feruglio Dal Dan Matrix: The news magazine of the BSFA [email protected] Editor Ian Whates [email protected] Published by the BSFA @2008 ISSN 05050448 Printed by PDC Copyprint (Guilford), Middle Unit, 77-83 Walnut Tree All opinions are those of the individual contributors and should not Close, Guilford, Surrey, GU1 4UH necessarily be taken as the views of the BSFA. Winter 2008 - Vector 258 Torque Control First, an apology that I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have the surface of the topic. War crops up everywhere in sf: to make again quite so soon: sorry that this issue and the one of my formative encounters with the genre, in fact, last have been late. The cause has been that usual catch- was through the lens of Games Workshop’s futuristic all, real life getting in the way of BSFA commitments. As wargame Warhammer 40,000, with its (to me as a teenager, I write, things appear to be getting back on track — the at any rate) grimly enticing promise that “In the grim next issue, which will be Vector’s review of 2008, is shaping darkness of the far future, there is only war!” This year up nicely — but I don’t want to tempt fate by promising I’ve encountered war in novels as different as Nick anything. Those of you who are online can, of course, get Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World, and Paul McAuley’s some updates from the forum on the BSFA website [1], aforementioned The Quiet War, and always accepted it or by posting a query on the blog incarnation of Torque without pause. But perhaps we should be a bit more aware Control [2] — and at the latter you can also find regular of the implications of sf’s reliance on conflict. At any rate, (ish) reviews, link roundups, and discussions, such as a for an additional perspective, I enthusiastically refer you recent debate about Stephen Baxter’s latest novel Flood, to Gwyneth Jones’ essay “Wild Hearts in Uniform” [4] with Adam Roberts, Graham Sleight, which looks at the mass-market literary and Karen Burnham [3] — but we do end of the subgenre, in particular the appreciate they are not a full substitute novels of David Weber, David Feintuch, for the magazine itself. Elizabeth Moon and — of course — On to the issue at hand, which Lois McMaster Bujold. “The science you’ll have noticed has an extra twelve fiction that sells,” Jones argues, “and pages to fit everything in — thanks to therefore must be accepted as deeply, Anna Feruglio Dal Dan for helping truthfully representative of the genre out with production of this one. We’re ... is a literature of arousal, of guilty tackling war in sf — which is, for better passion and violent emotion, secured and worse, one of the genre’s central by any means necessary”; which topics. Stephen Baxter examines the chimes interestingly, to my mind, with many and varied heirs to The War Of the sentiment expressed by Bujold The Worlds, and considers the extent in her Guest of Honor speech at this to which it can provide a controlling year’s Worldcon, that many sf novels metaphor for the twentieth century. are “fantasies of political agency” [5]. (One that he doesn’t mention, for The popularity of war within sf, in this entirely understandable reasons, is a view, is not just about explosions, nor is play that I saw as a student: Sherlock it just about providing a familiar stage Holmes Against the Martians, which on which to perform a plot; it is that it’s is exactly the sort of proto-League of an obvious way to dramatise change, to Extraordinary Gentlemen it sounds show a society in motion rather than at like from the title, and written, I believe though I haven’t rest, and to plausibly (perhaps) set up a moment in which verified, by the Jonathan Barnes who has now had two an individual action can have enormous repercussions. novels published by Gollancz. Stay Loyal! Remain And don’t forget to nominate for the BSFA Awards! Pure! Become Martian!) James Holden, meanwhile, Send your nominations for Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, seeks a new way to understand Wells’ original novel, Best Artwork and Best Non-Fiction to Donna Scott at taking a brief correspondence between Albert Einstein <[email protected]> by January 16th 2009, then look for and Sigmund Freud on the nature of war as a starting the shortlists soon after. point. Skipping forward some, Martin McGrath explores the politics — and heritage — of the “Green Soldier Endnotes Universe” seen in John Scalzi’s novel Old Man’s War and [1] <http://www.bsfa.co.uk/> its sequels, while Nick Hubble provides a detailed and [2] <http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/> compelling reading of Sarah Hall’s Tiptree-winning (and [3] <http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/a- Clarke-nominated) novel The Carhullan Army. In his final discussion-about-flood/> column, Saxon Bullock looks at the revamped Battlestar [4] <http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gwynethann/ Galactica alongside what for my money is now the best Wild%20Hearts.htm> science fiction TV series going, Terminator: The Sarah [5] <http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. Connor Chronicles. In his column, Stephen Baxter (him view&friendID=164952151&blogID=423204224> again) looks at the history of the “Hitler wins” novel; and we have reviews of various war stories (and other books, of course) in this issue’s First Impressions, including Paul McAuley’s widely-praised The Quiet War. That’s a lot of ground covered, but it hardly scratches 3 Vector 258 - Winter 2008 Letters To the editors — critical does not automatically mean being negative. Look After reading and re-reading Mr. Ludlow’s piece in up the word in the dictionary”) the last issue of Vector, I was left in a state of confusion 6. There’s a lot to be said for humility. After having and irritation. I freely admit that Mr. Ludlow’s tone and been outsmarted enough times, you learn that conceding style rubbed me up the wrong way, but when I sat down that something is your opinion and not a Natural Law or and started to think about it, I realized that my irritation the command of the Divine Providence is not a fault. stemmed most of all by the fact that while I understood And this is, more generally, my complaint. Mr. Ludlow that Mr. Ludlow was very upset about something, I was seems to suggest that reviews should be more than “some far less sure what this something was. To the best of my random guy’s opinion.” Well, what should they then be? understanding, he seems to be concerned that Somebody The opinion of some non random guy? How is this non- on the Internet is Wrong. To which I can only say, welcome random guy chosen? Or are they supposed to be more than to the club! Been there, written the rant, survived the opinions? I was ready to be treated to a general theory of resulting flamewar. literary worth while reading the piece, but did not find it. I can venture that Mr. Ludlow hasn’t survived the This did not overly surprise me, because as far as I know, same number of flamewars I have gone through, or he nobody has been able to agree to a standard objective way would have learned a few things, to wit: of measuring the goodness, significance, worthiness or 1. Not only is it the case that on the Internet everybody literary merit of a piece of fiction.