Memory - Lois McMaster Bujold

So, lets talk about Memory. Memory is one of those books I have to read every so often, because it’s, well, basically it’s great. In one sense, it’s great because it’s a story about digging into a devious, complex plot from a calculating villain. But in another, perhaps more true sense, it’s a story about someone doing some very stupid things in order to keep hold of a lifeline to a life they almost kind of had, a dream of a different tomorrow, or maybe a different yesterday. And in perhaps an even truer sense, it’s a story about how we aren’t always what we define ourselves to be, and in fact how those definitions can shape us and trap us, until we accept who we are and reshape our expectations to suit. 

As long time readers will know, I am a great fan of the Vorkosigan novels, and this one is up there as a favourite. Because here we have Miles, famously the dynamo, a man who has pushed through walls, literal and figurative to have a career in intelligence, doing real work, work which matters. And we have his alter ego, Naismith, leading fleet actions, the hero of a hundred stories, including his own. And, at last, we are at the cutting edge. Because Miles has to decide who he is. Is he Miles Vorkosigan, Imperial subject and occasional troublemaker extraordinaire? Or is he going to live out the dream of being the “Little Admiral”. The story asks him this in dire circumstances, and watching Miles twist and turn on the hook is, well, at once compelling and appalling. This is a man determined to have it both ways, who can make almost anything happen by force of will, trying to overcome some intractable obstacles which make what he wants impossible. 

It’s a struggle not to spoil why this might be, but I will say that it’s a hard choice for him. And it’s a downward spiral too, one filled with denial and delaying tactics, and some extremely poor decisions. Of course we’ve all seen those decisions before in previous books, and they usually come off alright. But Memory isn’t playing around. It’s showing us someone coming to the end of a long rope, and not afraid to demonstrate that the intergalactic James Bond lifestyle has physical and psychological consequences. 

Miles does not have a good time for a large part of this book. 

For all that though, his personality is unbowed, a fierce, driven individual; seeing that energy misapplied is heartbreaking, but it doesn’t feel any less true. It shows us what can happen when what you want and what you can achieve are out of sync, when you have to look around at where you are at this point and decide where you want to be. There’s a couple of paths out from that catalyst, and more than a few of them lead down the spiral of distress, depression, and unpleasant decisions which Miles finds themselves in. As a portrayal of a person in trouble, it’s raw and painful and genuine, with a pain that works because ou can feel it too. Who hasn’t asked themselves what to do next, and whether what they’re doing is what they want? Fewer of us are intergalactic spies, but, you know. The pain of losing dreams is here in all of us, and you can feel it in the energy Miles puts out on the page. 

In this he’s assisted by Illyan, his boss. Illyan has always had a bit of a soft spot for Miles, but maybe not for his “Little Admiral” persona, and really isn’t here for the self-serving, self-deluding work tat Miles is doing. But Illyan has problems of his own, under attack by an unseen, uncontrollable adversary, one who might, well, also be Miles. Watching Simon Illyan, the imperturbable head of Security, slowly crumble at the edges, while in front of him Miles does the same...well, there’s no other word than searing. It’s beautifully written, a duet of sorrow of the body and soul, both breaking down, both trying to find a different path than the boxes they’ve left themselves in until now.

This is a character story, and they are both marvellous in their character.

Of course there’s a plot, and byzantine schemes. An investigation that eats its own tail, with more twists and turns than a...twisty, turny thing. And a denouement that will probably have you as delighted as I was. Because oh my does it deliver. 

As Vorkosigan novels go, this isn’t one to start with. There’s too much context to find in what came before. But once you start it, you won’t be able to stop until it’s finished. It’s brilliant. 

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The Wolf of Oren-Yaro - K.S. Villoso

K.S. Villoso's The Wolf of Oren Yaro, is one of those books that sneaks up on you, narratively. You’re reading along, and think you have a handle on where it’s going, and suddenly the game changes. The understanding of the world, of the characters, of the situations they’re in...pivots, and suddenly everything is different. It also sneaks up on you in the sense that you start reading it, and suddenly it’s two in the morning and you remember that you have to go to work in a few hours, but also you kind of want to read just one more chapter. The Wolf of Oren Yaro is one of those books. 

It’s also a story that I want to call startlingly innovative; perhaps that’s my own narrowness of vision. In a world torn apart by conflict, the queen of Oren Yaro is trapped by a sense of duty, trying to hold disparate parts of a kingdom together after a civil war. Talyien is a hermit crab, desperately trapped in a citadel where everyone pretends to defer to her, whilst secretly - or openly - looking to subvert her will, or work it to their own ends, or ignore her and do what they were going to do anyway, short of outright killing each other. In this, she is not helped by the sudden disappearance of her husband, the other side of an arranged marriage to hold a kingdom together, or by long memories of her father, a man who apparently loved his daughter, but was perfectly willing to commit atrocities to close down a civil war. The survivors of that war, and those atrocities, have long memories, even as they bend the knee.

But Talis journey is one that works both personally and on a broader level - finding her husband to attempt to preserve her political and social position, as well as their kingdom, yes. But also Tali is trying to find out who she is, and what she needs or wants. She may be a fierce queen, hamstrung by circumstance. Or a hopeless despot. Or a woman who needs to be fragile and affectionate and human sometimes. Or maybe all of these, though history won’t say for sure just yet. But that’s the journey we’re on with her. And Tali is a beautiful character, crafted with a warmth of human empathy and an understanding of the depths of despair and the horrors of duty and the acceptance of obligation. Tali limits herself, makes herself the queen she needs to be - and sometimes she doesn’t And that has consequences of its own. Who Tali is, who she will decide to be, is a central path through this story, I think. It’s exploring her hurt and her shame and what in her pats has shaped her into the queen shaped mould she never quite seems to want to put herself in. The sorrowful queen, on the edge of acceptability, at the centre which cannot hold, is also a woman determined to strike out on her own, to do what needs to be done, to know and understand her world, to carve her own path in it, not the path of expectation. And the way that feels, reading it, is breathtaking. We can see the Queen of Oren-Yaro grow and change, and shift - and maybe not always in the way we might like or the way we might expect, but in a way which feels real and true.

And hers is a dangerous world. Court politics are one thing, but outside the broken kingdom of Oren-Yaro are worse things. Things she may yet meet with a sword in hand, or run away from. There are cities which seem like magic, and there’s magic that feels like hell itself. There are wonders and terrors here, and they’re not quite like anything else you’ve seen. The world is organic, drawn with an eye for detail, a precision and a grime and a patina of veracity that means the world feels lived in and real at the same time as it feels wonderful and terrifying in equal measure. 

I won’t get into the story here, because it really does want to surprise you. But I will say that there’s enough politics and murders and love and heartbreak and, well, occasional stabbings to make you sit up and take notice. This is a story of a journey, and it’s not so much an adventure as a woman trying to shape herself and shape her understanding of her world, as others try and do the same around her, with her, to her - with varying degrees of success. 

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a fascinating book. It’s one I couldn’t put down. It’s something I think you ought to give a try. 

Light Chaser - Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell

Light Chaser is a novella length work from Gareth L. powell and Peter F. Hamilton. Those two have written some of my favourite science fiction of the last decade, so seeing them together was enough to make this mandatory reading. I’m happy to say that I went in with high expectations, and they were surpassed. This is some top notch science fiction, combining a universe sprinkled with fascinating environments and different societies, with characterisation that lets you feel the pain, the struggle, the hope and the love of our protagonist, makes them feel real, and with an overarching story which  keeps you wanting to turn pages until it’s far too late at night. 

Light Chasers circle the worlds of a galactic civilisation. Some of those worlds are high-tech utopia, others are more medieval hellscapes. But each is linked together on the route of a LightChaser. These pilots have ships moving at significant amounts of lightspeed - centuries for the rest of us pass as moments for them. The Lightchasers drop in on each world on their route, observe society, and collect information about it before removing on to the next world in their loop. They’re people out of time, chasing an ouroboros. And we’re following one of these wanderers across space and time, as they dip in and out of everyone else’s lives. In part, this is a story that’s a meditation on loneliness and connection. In the way different people and places speak to each other, and in the way that those tying the web together sometimes spend their time alone, outside of the societies which rely on them.  Because a Lightchaser isn’t really from anywhere, not any more - and as they live on for centuries, enhanced beyond their natural span, they slowly forget more and more of themselves, losing who they were in the eternal now of who they are.

Powell and Hamilton are past-masters at creating living, breathing, believable worlds, and they do that again here. Each place we see is different, and special, and vividly drawn, and feels real.

This is matched by the Lightchaser herself, a woman who lives in the silent spaces between the stars,  content in the endless round of circling her route between the stars. Cynical and world weary and craving experiences that are more than her boundaries allow. But also an explorer, and alone, and looking for something genuine, a sense of connection in the individual which is mirrored in the connections she enables in the worlds. The Lightchaser is smart and funny and wounded and sometimes painful to read, and still very, very human. As someone living in an eternal now, we're looking over their shoulder into both the new and old, trying to figure it out as she does. 

And figure it out she must. Because there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Or in the state of the universe, at any rate. Everything is not as it seems, and although I won’t spoil it, I’ll say this: the story is tightly plotted, letting out a slow burn of revelation which will keep you coming back to the story, and which certainly kept me reading until well past my bedtime.  

Light Chaser is a smart, high-concept piece of sci-fi, with a great, well realised protagonist, a universe filled with different human societies which feel new, alien and real at the same time, and with a story that doesn’t let up, and won’t let go. In short, it’s great fun, and a great read. Give it a try.

Orders of Battle - Marko Kloos

Orders of Battle is the latest in Marko Kloos’ Frontlines series. It follows on from the previous instalments, which were rather fun, well thought out works of military science fiction, which blended right, well-crafted characterisation with some adrenaline-pumping action and a universe that slowly pulled back its dark corners to let in both the characters and the reader. 

The latest book continues the trend. In high level terms, you probably know what you’re going to get going in, at this stage in the series. There’s the delightful relationship between Major Andrew Grayson and his dropship-pilot wife Halley, which highlights the travails of making a relationship work alongside a military career, but also portrays that relationship as genuine, warm and caring.

And alongside that there’s the camaraderie and rivalry of inter-service teams, going into combat with alien enemies one might never understand, trying to get through the day, to survive, to make sure your luck doesn’t run out. And the odd enmity, of course because even when humanity is menaced by creatures bigger than houses which just want to flatten us and get on with their colonising, people found a way to make feuds themselves. Those relationships are at the heart of this story, and Halley and Andrew’s is the soul. It’s a warm bath, a love which allows for the flaws of the people involved, but also shows us some of the good and hope and long-steeped affection they have for each other - the way people who’ve lived together a long time do.

Of course those relationships are cloaked in a world that’s coming back out of a near-extinction event. Where out there, somewhere, are aliens who want us all dead. But where the veterans of that last war are slipping into obsolescence. Things are quiet now, why not forever? |This is a world that isn’t rash, but perhaps arrogant in its victories. A world that respects sacrifices, but is starting to forget what it was like to make them. Earth is building ships to fight a threat that it half thinks of as ended. If the slums and tenements are now fewer than before, still, the centre is not holding. Privilege and power sit on the knife edge of revolution yet - and the threat of the alien aggressor helps keep folk in line, even as they dismiss it. And the military arm where we spend our time - well, Kloos has an eye for the culture, the can do, and the tensions between levels of unit command. Our protagonists are leaders now, and they struggle under the weight of that - and they may yet butt heads with others in similar positions.

The story is, well, something new. It’s a little slower, perhaps, than one might think. Ratchets the tension up, one turn of the screw at a time. And it wants to let you think about what lies ahead. This is the slowly soaring score, the trek toward the peak. But it has all the action one might want, in space, where the glimmer of reaction drives is the evidence of total disaster, and on the ground, where dead worlds and staccato gunfire mean that humanity has once again found itself in something messy. And in both cases it carries the sense of visceral energy, humanity, bravery and chaos and hope and loss that makes up a war, lets you feel the iron on your tongue, and gets you to turn the page.

Kloos has given us another fine instalment in his series, and as ever, I think you should read it; I know it left me wanting more.

Space Opera - Catherynne M. Valente

You know what, Space Opera is, at its heart, a hell of a lot of fun. It's a story of glamour, pop, washed up legends, hope, murder, and humanity. But it's also the story of how people have to sing for their lives, what they justify to themselves, aliens, old friendships, galactic wars, and, well, a whole melange of things, blended together into a sci-fi gumbo. With sequins. 

At heart, Space Opera is a hell of a lot of fun. 

But it has soul, too. And much fo that soul is Decibel Jones. 

Decibel Jones is a superstar. In his head. He was, once, for a while. He had a band, and they did drugs and danced and sang like angels or demons, and the money rolled in like the leading edge of a tsunami. But years later, he's someone sat on the edge of the bed, wondering where it all went wrong. Where the money went, where the friends went, why it's so hard to sing any more, when it's so hard to care.  This is a portrait of a washed out, washed up rock star. You can feel the trailing tingle of depression, of self destruction, of someone lost at sea in a haze of past hedonism gone sour. But down in there is a flicker of talent, a flicker of hope, a kind of flicker of humanity that makes us feel like people, and lets us know that we're alive. Decibel Jones may not be happy with where and how and who he is, but he's still there, somehwere, between one drink and the next. 

In a lot of ways, this is his story, the story of one old pop star given the chance to put on their skin-tight leather trousers again, to bring out one more hit so that they can feel alive. But also so they can reach out into the roaring sea of adulation and use it to go inward, to find redemption, of sorts.

Unfortunately for Decible Jones, he has to do that while also singing to save the world. Because humanity is not alone in the universe, and the others looking in want to see the heart of humanity, want ot hear it sing. And they want to hear from Decibel Jones, a person trying to find his own soul, never mind representing that of humanity. So, you know, no pressure. 

The story itself is built around Jonesand his relationshis past and present - with band mates and with the weird and wonderful aliens of the now. The world we know is presented with care and compassion, people shown to be flawed in so many different ways, struggling in so many different ways, but rising up almost despite thmesleves. It contrats wonderfully with the glamour and glitz of a galactic confederation which is at once advanced, and filled with backbiting, politics and moments of genuine bravery and wonder. There's so much to see out there, and so much on the page which is new and exciting and impressive, that I don't want to spoil it. But Eurovision, but with aliens - well, if that doesn't sell you, I don't know what to say. The event, the glamour of it, the stakes, that'll keep you turning pages. The weird aliens and the way they think, the same but also not of us, but also the same again, will amaze and delight you. But the heart and soul, Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes, the band, are hauntingly, brokenly, beautifully human, and this is their story, their stand against a tide, their moment of being fully human.

Which is to say, this is a fun book, and a page turner, and it'll make you laugh, and it might make you cry, because it has some serious thoughts, some serious human moments to slip in between the funny. It's great, and I really want you, yes you, to give this disco-ball gem a whirl.

The Splinter King - Mike Brooks

I’ve been a fan of Mike Brooks for yonks, ever since his Dark Run brought some punky fun to sci-fi. And I thought his new fantasy series started off rather well, with The Black Coast, a story of family, togetherness, politics, assassination, compassion, magic, and some explosive battles that dovetailed with a strong thread of humanity to make something rather special. 

Happily, the sequel is here. The Splinter King takes a lot of the core themes from its predecessor, and expands on them or enhances their impact. It’s a clever book, with a story whose twists and turns will make you want to keep reading, and whose characters have enough flaws to make them feel human, as you cheer them on through their struggles.

And it’s a book which will show you more of its world, will ask a few more questions, and even provide some answers.

I will say that this is a book with what feels like a lot of point sof view. Fortunately, they all come with their own unique voices, and their various storylines are cool enough and interesting enough that they don’t feel spread too thin. Worry not, folks, because some of our existing friends are back in this book - Saana and Daimon and their struggles at Black Kepe are still here, though they’re not as much of a focus this time around, as the narrative camera pans out for the metaphorical wide angle shot. But they’re still a wonderful portrayal of a couple tied together by necessity, trying to find something in themselves and each other, and trying very hard to do the right thing, dancing a tightrope of obligation, affection and power to shape a community. 

But Darel is here as well, Daimon’s brother, heading to the capital of an empire to plead the case for the people of Black Kepe and their old enemies to be able to live in peace. Darel is perhaps more bookish than his brother, arguably more learned, but equally out of his comfort zone, heading through violent seas toward a thronging capital filled with deadly politics. But he’s amiable and thoughtful as well as brave, and great fun to walk alongside every chapter or two.

The same can be said of Stonejaw, leading the survivors of a raid on Blackkeep, looking for somewhere else to be, and something else to do. Stonejaw is caustic, capable, and taking no crap from anyone.But also very much done with quests and leaders and orders. Maybe she was a bad guy in the last volume, and here isn’t exactly always making the heroic choices - but as someone with limited options, getting out from between a rock and a hard place, she’s easier to sympathise with, and puts a human face on what could have just been a foe without identity. 

There’s also Jeya, and her efforts to keep the survivor of an assasination attempt hidden, in a city that would very much like to see both of them dead. Jeya has a painful shaping to her, someone grown on the streets of fear and pain, but also a  kind of potential, and an honesty of the soul, a purity of affection which makes her great fun to read, as she ducks and weaves and dodges and talks their way into all sorts of trouble.There’s murder and mayhem and daring escapes aplenty, among moments of heartbreaking friendship and genuine love. I’ve got a lot of time for Jeya, and she really gets to shine here.

The same can be said of Tila, sometimes a princess, sometimes the head of a criminal underworld.If Jeya is at street level, Tila is the reverse - moving smoothly in a world of power politics, and occasional violence, with a collected cool that makes you want to cheer her on, even as she does necessary, terrible things. Of course, sometimes those things happen to terrible people, which always helps. And you know when you see her name come up, that something is about to go down. The political machinations of the city are her domain, yes, but it’s her calm, her agency, her refusal to be cowed, her ability to look for surprising solutions, which make her an engaging, compelling character. And she’s going to need to be a ruthless one as well, as there’s plots stacked on plots on...well, more plots, in the Empire her brother runs, and it’s possible not everything will go her way. 

Zhanna is back as well; she was perhaps a bit overshadowed by Saana in the first volume, but here she has more of the focus. Watching her develop from a potential leader into a reluctant, decisive leader, well, that’s a delight. And the mistakes along the way are bloody and epic and heroic - and if I could sing a song of them without spoilers, I would. But for now, I’ll say this: the blood and bone and tears and terrors and deaths and sorrows and victories are here, a microcosm of the world on the page, and Zhanna stands among them, and you just want to cheer her on. 

And then there’s Marin; sometime thief, fulltime bullshit artist, trying to be a good husband. 

I always enjoy watching Marin run his lines on people, trying to do what’s best for his in-group, and ending up in what I’ll call shenanigans. His is another story woven with spoiler tags, but it’s a fast paced, snappy one, filled with some cracking dialouge, and more than its fair share of wry chuckles and “Wait what” moments. 

The whole ensemble are a joy, and between them they cover off a huge amount of geography - from busy city streets to mountain passes, to the monster-infested sea depths, there’s something for everyone here. And it’s described in lavish, loving detail which pains the world into something living and real. You can smell the curling smoke of the woodfire on the breeze, hear the banter of the market, the ring f steel on steel, feel the hot breath of a dinosaur..er...war dragon on your neck. 

And in between is woven a story that made me laugh more than once, wrung my heart more than once, and absolutely, one-hundred percent delivers. It’s got politics, it has best friends, it has stabbings, it has magic, it has war dragons and armies on the march. It has death and love and all of life right there on the pace, but woven together with such a pace, such tension, such gripping sensibility that you will probably, like me, end up turning the pages long ater you should have been asleep. It’s great fun, and a great sequel. Go read it!