The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine - Jonathan Strahan (Ed.)

I have to be honest – if you’re going to read one sci-fi/fantasy anthology this year, this one would be a really good choice.  In the first place, because it collects a lot of wonderfully diverse material. There’s the acidic action and wry cynicism of Abercrombie’s fantasy  here, in "Tough Times All Over".  There’s a more whimsically fantastical feel, laced with a degree of tragedy, a focus on character, on growth, in Amal El-Mohtar’s "The Truth About Owls". There’s space opera sci-fi mixed up with a coming of age tale, humour mixed with horror in Holly Black’s "Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (The Successful Kind)", and there’s a kind of relentless courage and a broader moral question looped into the more contemporary sci-fi of Elizabeth Bear’s "Covenant". Given the sheer number of stories in this collection, I’d say that there’s something for almost everyone.

The same is true of the approaches taken across the anthology toward those topics. There are some excellent character pieces, an author diving in to explore their protagonist, what makes them tick, what drives them. The tone across these is wildly different (K.J. Parker’s dryly cynical accidental wizard wouldn’t merge well with the bare-faced grotesqueries  surrounding Caitlin Kiernan’s serial killers, for example) , but I don’t think there was a bad one in the bunch.  There’s more plot-driven pieces as well, keeping the reader turning pages to see what happens – Garth Nix, for example, produces a wonderful take on this with is cryptic Shay Corsham Worsted, which begins and ends in enigma, leaving the reader wanting to know what happened before the start, and after the end of the story.

To be fair, some of the stories worked a little better for me than others; some of the pieces seemed to tie fantasy up with magical realism, and it was at once eminently readable and entirely baffling. There were moments when what an author was trying to achieve was clear, but the prose wasn’t quite navigating where it needed to go. That said, I can’t think of a single story in this rather mammoth collection that was actively bad – just a few that didn’t work as well for me as I’d hoped. On the other hand, that may be due to the aforementioned diversity – there’s a lot of content here, something in the area of 600 pages of narrative; maybe those that didn’t quite click with me would  be someone else’s story of the year.

In any event, the collection presents a great many stories across a wide breadth of areas within the genre. And all of them are well written, and many of them are enjoyable (a few seem to have been written purposely to not be enjoyable, per se, and they succeed admirably). There’s some works here by well known authors, some more niche that I’d heard of, and a few interesting new discoveries – and all are worth your attention; the relatively short lengths of their stories belie their quality and their impact on the reader. At any rate, all of this collection may not be for you, but there’s probably quite a few pieces that will be – I had a few favourites, but the quality was uniformly good.

If you’re in the mood to sample something new, something interesting, something unique, you’ll probably find something to enjoy here. Strahan really has done an excellent job of gathering up some of the best short works of sci-fi and fantasy from the last year, and it’s absolutely worth giving it a read.

(I’ve put the table of contents – snagged from Tor -  below; there are so many authors in here, it may help to know if one you particularly want to read is present, or if you’re looking for a particular story)

• “Tough Times All Over”—Joe Abercrombie
• “The Scrivener”—Eleanor Arnason
• “Moriabe’s Children”—Paolo Bacigalupi
• “Covenant”—Elizabeth Bear
• “Slipping”—Lauren Beukes
• “Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (The Successful Kind)”—Holly Black
• “Shadow Flock”—Greg Egan
• “The Truth About Owls”—Amal El-Mohtar
• “Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology”—Theodora Goss
• “Cold Wind”—Nicola Griffith
• “Someday”—James Patrick Kelly
• “Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No.8)”—Caitlin R Kiernan
• “Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They are Terrifying”—Alice Sola Kim
• “Amicae Aeternum”—Ellen Klages
• “Calligo Lane”—Ellen Klages
• “The Lady and the Fox”—Kelly Link
• “The Long Haul From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION”—The Pacific Monthly, May 2009”—Ken Liu
• “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family”—Usman T Malik
• “Four Days of Christmas”—Tim Maughan
• “The Fifth Dragon”—Ian McDonald
• “Shay Corsham Worsted”—Garth Nix
• “I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There”—K. J. Parker
• “Kheldyu”—Karl Schroeder
• “Tawny Petticoats”—Michael Swanwick
• “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)”—Rachel Swirsky
• “The Insects of Love”—Genevieve Valentine
• “Collateral”—Peter Watts
• “The Devil in America”—Kai Ashante Wilson

Interstitial - The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine

Tomorrow we have an anthology review - the ninth volume of Strahan's excellent The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. In quick summary - it's huge, it's full of stories across the entire swathe of genres and sub genres that define sci-fi and fantasy fiction, and they're all very good.

More tomorrow!

Also this week, Midnight Crossroads, the new novel by Charlaine Harris.

Slow Bullets - Alastair Reynolds

Slow Bullets is a sci-fi novella (around 50,000 words) by Alastair Reynolds. It’s a narrative apparently written by a woman called Scur. The narrative discusses her past life, as a soldier in an apparently long running war. After being captured and interrogated, she wakes up to find herself on a ship being used to transit war criminals for trial – but, not to give anything away, something has gone ever so slightly wrong. The remainder of the narrative slowly reveals what has happened, and why.

The world, or rather, the ship on which Scur finds herself, is slowly revealed through the narrative. 

Both the ship and the society  that produced it are explored in detail through the text – the latter mostly through character dialog.  Scur serves as both the central narrative voice and the protagonist. We see some of her past through her own voice, innately unreliable as that is, but the focus of her character is on the developments aboard the ship in which she finds herself – events which define and change her. The supporting cast are more loosely defined –they’re available to advance the plot, but we don’t see much of them revealed, which is a shame – but given the length of the text, understandable.

The prose is typical Reynolds, but in a unique voice for Scur – tightly wound, terse, and sparse. But each sentence has been crafted with Reynolds typical attention, and that makes it a pleasure to read.

There are a couple of wider themes in the text, but the most central seems to be around memory, and the events that a person chooses to shape them, or allows to do so. The ‘Slow Bullets’ of the title are implanted in all of the prisoners on the ship, and carry their lives for them, their memories, everything that defines what and who they are. As the narrative progresses, the question becomes whether the bullets actually define the person in whom they sit, or whether a person deserves a clean slate, a chance to remake themselves.

Overall, this is a wonderful Reynolds short. It’s clever, it’s well written, and it doesn’t make concessions to the reader – it demands their attention, and then  wraps that attention into a vivid world and set of situations. Very much worth reading, if you’re in the mood for a hard-sci fi novella with some interesting questions to ask.

Interstitital - Slow Bullets

Tomorrow see s a relatively quick review of Alastair Reynold's latest novella, "Slow Bullets". It follows a survivor of an interstellar war, who wakes up from hibernation in a ship full of convicts, war criminals and civilians. There's a set of narrative twists to the whole thing, but as usual with Reynolds, it's more about obliquely approaching big questions - in this case, around what makes people who they are, and how we seek to define ourselves.

Knight's Shadow - Sebastien De Castell

Knights Shadow is the sequel to Sebastien De Castell’s excellent debut, The Traitor’s Blade.

For background purposes, the narrative is set in the country of Tristia, divided into several semi-autonomous Dukedoms, several years after a new king attempted to reform the laws and practices of the land, to give the common people a fair chance;  the Dukes, jealous of their power, immediately rebelled and executed the king.

The text follows fairly directly on from the end of the first book, and begins with the focus on the central character triad from the first book – three ‘Greatcoats’, travelling magistrates and duellists, empowered by the dead king to bring laws to a land determined to wallow in corruption. The world is gradually taking shape, a new piece introduced in a line of dialogue, or in a moment of character insight. Where Traitor’s Blade used the world as a platform to tell it’s story, and you could feel the bones of the background under the narrative, the world of Knight’s Shadow is more fleshed out, and feels a little more real.

If you’re picking up Knights Shadow, you’re probably aware of the central characters already. I will say that the three of them continue to remind me quite strongly of the Three Musketeers, possibly intentionally – there’s the same witty banter, a certain grim joie de vivre, a bond of lucky escapes and noble failures.  Falcio and friends  are a joy to read about. That said, their interactions in this book are perhaps a little darker than in the first. They’re not exactly older or wiser, but perhaps a bit more damaged, following the events of the first text. Each carries their own scars, and De Castell isn’t afraid to show us that their actions have consequences – both personal and political. They’re joined by some old faces, but also a few new ones – the feisty, reasonably terrifying and possibly totally amoral Dariana, for one, quickly became a firm favourite.

The dynamic between the characters is marvellous to read; they bounce between each other, and each moment of light banter raises a chuckle – but De Castell also keeps the emotional depth coming from each of them. Where it would be easy to create a light hearted fantasy, this text veers between the cheerier tone, descending into the grim, the grimy, the bloody – and uses that to showcase the personalities, the vulnerabilities, the centres of the characters. If the world is becoming more fleshed out, the characters are doing the same – we’re exposed to fears, acts of pointless bravery, cowardice, and a lot of moral grey areas – the latter being something that our heroes aren’t famously good at dealing with. This has, as mentioned above, consequences.

From a plot point of view, the tone here feels a lot grimmer. The Greatcoats are beaten down, moving from crisis to crisis, tracking murders, dealing with their interpersonal issues, trying to stop glowing red all the time…there’s always something going on, and it’s usually not good news for the heroes. The pacing is pitch perfect, at least for me – each crisis feels like it rockets to a conclusion, desperately turning pages in an effort to find out what happens next…and then it finishes. And everyone takes a breath. And then the next crisis appears, and off we go again. I really couldn’t stop reading – especially as the narrative drove to a climax. Speaking of which, I won’t go into the ending for fear of spoilers, but I will say that it absolutely delivers.

This is fast, fantastic fun –and it has an excellent character piece wrapped inside it, with some interesting things to say about people, how far they’ll go for their goals, and what they’ll find important. What they need, what they’ll betray, and how, ultimately, they define themselves.
Also, it’s full of people getting their comeuppance (deserved or otherwise), a smidge of torture, and quite duels; overall, it’s a great read, and very much a worthy sequel.

Interstitial - Knight's Shadow

Been reading Sebastien De Castell's sequel to his excellent *Traitor's Blade*. Apart from my inability to type the apostrophe correctly, it's an excellent book. It's full of the same joy, the same gang of musketeers-turned-lawkeepers against the world as the first book, but the tone has turned darker, the stakes are higher, and the consequences for mistakes (and successes) are both severe and seemingly inevitable.

Basically, it's a great read. Proper review tomorrow!

Prince of Fools - Mark Lawrence

Prince of Fools is the start of Mark Lawrence’s latest peregrination into the world of the Broken Empire – first explored through the damaged, driven, dangerous Prince Jorg in Prince of Thorns.

The protagonist of Prince of Fools is a totally different animal. Lawrence has exercised considerable skill here to give his new protagonist, Prince Jalan, an entirely distinct voice. That voice is equal parts wit and cowardice – though there is a surprisingly deep emotional well hinted at throughout the text. 

In any event, Jalan is a minor scion of the Red March, a major nation in a shattered Empire, led by the formidable Red Queen. Jalan is quite happy to stay minor – spending his days s[ending money, mostly on wine, women and…well, more wine, really. He’s introduced whilst hitting a man from behind whilst fleeing from the bed of the man’s sister, and really, matters don’t improve from there. He’s a coward and sometimes a buffoon – but what makes him readable is his wit. The wry remarks of a man lazily comfortable in his own selfishness, prepared to lie, cheat and steal in order to look after his own interests – and if at all possible, to look good while doing so.  Whilst Jorg was, in some ways, representative of the danger and damage  that lurks in the hearts of all men, Jalan is less, and more – he feels less like a hero, or an antihero, less a literary construction than a person. Not a particularly nice person, not an altruistic person, not a good person – but a person, one acting as the reader might, in ways we can understand, empathise with, and, often, laugh at.

Brief digression: This is a very funny book, at least in parts. Jalan’s observations on the hopeless nature of heroics are especially hilarious, along with his frustration that everyone around him seems to be a violent psychopath, or otherwise determined to do him harm or rope him into their plotting.

Jalan is paired up quite quickly with Snorri, a slightly grim Viking. At first glance, Snorri acts as a grounding influence on Jalan. Where Jalan flits between entertainments, keen to be the man he is, rather than the man he’s expected to be, and is particularly good at evading consequences, Snorri is a man dedicated to his family, and to being the man he wants to be, perhaps tired of being the man that he is. Their relationship is the cornerstone of the text, and it’s wonderfully portrayed – a shift from pragmatic self-interest, through camaraderie, into a kind of deeper interaction. Snorri provides a lot of the emotional heft of the text, at least initially – Jalan is a self-interested womaniser, dragged into an adventure against his own inclination (and partially to evade debt collectors), but Snorri has a wife and children to find as part of their journey, and his revelations of his story to Jalan over the course of the novel are a strong influence on both their characters.

The supporting characters are a bit less well defined, but most of them are fairly incidental to the central interaction between Jalan and Snorri – still, at one stage the reader is given a look at a small band of Vikings, and it would have been nice to know more about them before the inevitable Dirty Dozen style mission that they go on with our heroes.

Make no mistake, this is also a journey novel. It’s reminiscent (possibly intentionally) of the movements of a Nordic saga. Jalan and Snorri move from the warm climes of what might pass for southern France, up into the permanent ice fields of what could be Norway, struggling under the crushing weight of centuries of ice. Along the way, they encounter several ambivalent wizards, an extremely disturbing sorceress, a small horde of Vikings, and the walking dead.  And that’s not the half of it.  There’s a lot of action wrapped up in this elaborate character piece – and not all of it is Jalan running away from something.

The plot starts with a nice slow burn, and ratchets up wonderfully – the action feels paired with the emotional investment of the characters. As you become more attached, so the plot draws in toward what is, frankly, an action-packed conclusion.

The prose is typical Lawrence – the environments will surround you, wrap you in their words, fill you up and leave you feeling their heat – or, more typically in this case, their frigidity. Each sentence is carefully crafted – the descriptions of places draw you in, the dialogue between characters is human, and entirely believable. Where Lawrence excels here is in the emotional impact of his words – where some scenes are lightweight, they still manage to crack a smile . Others will, without question, try and crack into your heart with their stark vulnerability, with their honesty, and with their attempt to bring out the reality of being human.

Overall, this is a wonderful book; the plot will captivate, terrify and delight .  The world will disturb, and intrigue. The characters will amuse, entertain, then break you down in tears. Don’t hesitate – pick up a copy, read it, and see where it takes you.