Vector the Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association
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Vector The critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association A YEAR IN REVIEW No. 266 SPRING 2011 £4.00 Vector 265 The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association Contents The British Science Fiction Association That Cosmological Feeling: President Stephen Baxter An Interview with Stephen Baxter ........................... 3 Chair Ian Whates [email protected] Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee Cycle: No Coming Home Jonathan McCalmont .................................................. 8 Treasurer Martin Potts 61 Ivy Croft Road, Warton The Settee and the Stars: Stephen Baxter and the Near Tamworth Dilemma of Scale B79 0JJ Gary K Wolfe ............................................................. 14 [email protected] Membership Peter Wilkinson An Atomic Theory of Baxter’s Fiction Services Flat 4, Stratton Lodge, 79 Bulwer Road Adam Roberts ............................................................ 19 Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN5 5EU Three Colours NASA: Reflections on Stephen [email protected] Baxter’s ‘NASA’ trilogy Simon Bradshaw ....................................................... 24 Membership fees UK £29 p.a., or £20 p. a. (unwaged), or Putting the Past into the Future: The Time’s £31 p.a. (joint/family memberships) Tapestry sequence Outside UK £40 Tony Keen .................................................................. 29 The BSFA was founded in 1958 and is a non- Foundation’s Favourite: Stone Spring profitmaking organisation entirely staffed by unpaid Andy Sawyer ............................................................. 34 volunteers. Registered in England. Limited by Baxter’s People guarantee. Company No. 921500 Niall Harrison ............................................................ 37 Registered address: 61 Ivy Croft Road, Warton, Near Giant Killer Rodents in Space Armour, With Guns: Tamworth, B79 0JJ the other side of Stephen Baxter Website http://www.bsfa.co.uk Graham Sleight .......................................................... 42 First Impressions BSFA Awards Book reviews edited by Martin Lewis ................... 44 Administrator: Donna Scott [email protected] BSFA Awards Shortlist 2011 .................................... 62 Orbiter writing groups Vector website: http://www.vector-magazine.co.uk Postal Groups Gillian Rooke Editor’s blog: http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com Southview, Pilgrims Lane Vector Chilham, Kent Features, Editorial Shana Worthen CT4 8AB and Letters: [email protected] Online Groups: Terry Jackman Book Reviews: Martin Lewis [email protected] 14 Antony House Pembury Place Other BSFA publications London, E5 8GZ Focus: The writer’s magazine of the BSFA Production: Martin McGrath [email protected] Editor Martin McGrath 48 Spooners Drive, Park Street, Published by the BSFA @2010 ISSN 05050448 St Albans, AL2 2HL All opinions are those of the individual contributors and should not [email protected] necessarily be taken as the views of the BSFA. Matrix: The news magazine of the BSFA Front cover image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/2MASS/SSI/ University of Wisconsin, back cover: NASA and The Hubble Editor Ian Whates Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) [email protected] VECTOR 266 – SPRING 2011 Torque Control As you will have read in Niall Harrison’s last editor’s primarily older short stories, revisiting and exploring column, he’s now the executive editor of Strange Horizons, what made them powerful and memorable for him in which is why I’m here, writing to you, as the new features the first place, starting with a vivid exploration of Kate editor of Vector. Wilhelm’s “The Infinity Box”. The other week, I was asked what my vision for It’s not all change thought, here at Vector. I’m happy Vector’s future was. I hadn’t articulated one in quite so to reassure you that the columns by Andy Sawyer and many words. When Niall Harrison and Geneva Melzack Stephen Baxter continue, as do, of course, the reviews, took over editing Vector five years ago, they began with edited by Martin Lewis. an issue on manifestos. They had specific goals in mind While I am not, for now, aiming for entirely-themed on where to take the magazine, including using it to issues, I do intend to have clusters of related articles on a encourage discussion of contemporary sf, a mandate regular basis. Later this year, for example, one issue will which the magazine has admirably fulfilled in the last be devoted to articles on novels by women sf authors of half-decade. the last decade. This cluster is a follow up to a poll which Chronologically, my vision tends to run the other Niall ran on the Vector editors’s blog, Torque Control, way. Without curtailing coverage of contemporary sf, my this past autumn, inspired by the lack of recent Arthur personal interest is in how these modern developments C Clarke award wins by women, compared with the are contextualised by the history of the field. I’m a previous decade. Over the course of the year on the blog, historian of medieval technology by training, so how we’re discussing the top eleven books from the poll (a tie things ended up the way they are is, generally, a subject meant there are eleven books in the top ten), one book per of great interest to me, whether it’s modern novels or month. Please do join us! Here is the schedule – and the devices long-since passed out of use. Yet I’m also a fan, top eleven books, in chronological order. with more recent reading interests, and became involved February Bold as Love with the BSFA through its monthly London meetings by Gwyneth Jones shortly after moving there. March Speed of Dark It’s appropriate then, that my first issue is the annual by Elizabeth Moon retrospective, in which we’re primarily not looking back very far, but we are looking back, surveying 2010 from April Natural History the distance of up to thirteen months. The annual Vector by Justina Robson Reviewer’s Poll, edited by Martin Lewis, showcases the May The Time-Traveler’s Wife highlights of what the magazine’s reviewers found to by Audrey Niffennegger be the finest novels of the year. Jonathan McCalmont June Maul provides a look back at what the highlights – and by Tricia Sullivan lowlights – of science fictional film were last year, while Alison Page provides an analysis of the major elements July City of Pearl and shows that television had to offer the science fiction by Karen Traviss fan in 2010. August Life Anthony Nanson looks back further, to the late 1980s, by Gwyneth Jones to survey Stephen Lawhead’s original Pendragon cycle September Farthing which, as a work of Arthuriana, is itself set in a still longer by Jo Walton ago medievalesque setting. He examines the tension October The Carhullan Army/Daughters of the North between Lawhead’s revisioning of the Arthurian myth by Sarah Hall and the modern Christian influences with shape and limit Lavinia his characterizations. November This issue also marks the start of two new columns. by Ursula Le Guin One is by Terry Martin, editor of graphic novel/ December Spirit speculative fiction magazine Murky Depths, whose by Gwyneth Jones column, previously in Vector’s sister magazine Matrix, My thanks to Niall for the hard work which he put will now regularly appear in these pages. Appropriately into Vector over the last five years, and the amazing issues for a year-in-review issue, his first column here surveys which he produced. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be the state of the comics industry. (What’s up with Matrix able to take on the challenge of editing the features for magazine itself? Ian Whates will be updating us on it in a magazine which is in such good shape. I’m looking the next issue of Vector.) forward (instead of to the past for a change), to see how The editors who took over five years ago also wrote it all works out. that they wanted to focus on detailed analyses of short stories. This issue marks the start of a new column by Shana Worthen, Editor Paul Kincaid that carries on that goal. He’ll be re-reading http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/ 3 SPRING 2011 – VECTOR 266 A YEAR IN REVIEW LOOKING BACK AT 2010 You could perhaps have anticipated the result... The top five was dominated by science fiction – perhaps In a change from previous years, for Vector’s review not surprising given the name of our organisation – but of 2010 I asked reviewers to both vote for their five in fourth place was Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, “a favourite novels published last year and write a piece reflection of Tang Dynasty China that rings our present on their reading in general. The freestyle pieces start on world like a bell” according to Niall Harrison. Not far the next page with Graham Andrews behind was Kraken by China Miéville. discussing a forgotten paperback but After last year’s all conquering The by now I’m sure your eye has already The Dervish House City & The City, this was widely seen been drawn to the results of the poll. 1. by Ian McDonald as a more modest work but a modest The triumph of The Dervish House Miéville work is still a substantial beast by Ian McDonald was comprehensive; New Model Army and his popularity shows no sign of it received twice as many votes as New 2. by Adam Roberts waning. Model Army by Adam Roberts which Surface Detail Completing the list, Patrick Ness came in second. If you’ve read any concluded what has to be this young other end of year articles you probably 3. by Iain M Banks century’s finest work of Young Adult won’t be surprised, as it seems that The Under Heaven science fiction with Monsters Of Men, Dervish House was the science fiction by Guy Gavriel Kay Richard Powers provided the token novel of 2010. This was also reflected in 4. non-genre book with his blending of its appearance on the shortlist for the The Windup Girl science, fiction and science fiction in BSFA Award for best novel.