BOOK REVIEWS

1999, Part I: September 1999

1999, Christian Sauvé

Reviewed this month:

 

 

Deep Time:
How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia
Gregory Benford

Bard Avon, 1999, 225 pages, $26.00 Can., ISBN 0-380-97537-8

We human critters have a few deficiencies, and one of them is certainly our lack of capacity for long-term planning. Try as we might, our day-to-day combat through life almost invariably relates to the next meal, the next paycheck, the next project, the next summer vacations.

The problem is not as much with human individuals, but with the realization that no one else is making long-term planning either. Organized groups usually think too much in terms of upcoming elections, end-quarter results or continued sources of funding to be concerned about long-term perspectives. This is not exactly a bad thing (given the rate of technological and social change, most plans will crumble at long range anyway) but it can certainly become a problem in a few situations.

Deep Time, by noted scientist and SF author Gregory Benford, takes a look at a few concerns that will require more than our usual attention span. In the process, he raises some fundamental issues about the environment, technical progress, civilization lifespan and how even long-term science is conducted by short-term humans. The book is divided in four parts:

The first segment begins as Benford is asked to be part of a study team, mandated by the American Congress, to study ways of ensuring that nuclear waste sites will remain undisturbed for more than the 10,000 years required for their degradation to harmless levels. Putting "Dangerous stuff; keep out!" signs obviously won't do, especially when we consider that 10,000 years is lengthier than the span of recorded human history. Benford's team had to consider such cheery subjects as complete civilizational collapse, language drift, evolving digging technologies, relic hunters, etc... The team ended up proposing massive, eerie sculptural features, multiple-language messages with iconographic support and a host of other neat features. This is by far the most fascinating piece of the book.

The second quarter concerns the efforts of a group of scientists to compose an "ultimate" message-to-others to be carried on the Cassini space probe. Though most of us are familiar with the gold plaque loaded on the Voyager probes, this was meant to be an updated version of this effort. Unfortunately, even though an interesting message was developed, the effort was doomed and replaced by a politically-neutral DVD containing an utterly meaningless list of names... A sign that even the most scientifically brilliant schemes can still be brought down by [internal politics]. This section is made even more engrossing by the drama of [NASA's] last-minute refusal to go ahead with the plan.

[September 2002 Note: I received a message from Carolyn Porco, who co-led the Cassini team and objected to some of the language used in the above paragraph. After some consideration and two year's worth of hindsight, I came to the conclusion that Benford's account is rather one-sided and as such, some of the language I used was harsh, unwarranted, most probably wrong and undeserving of being kept in the Googlesphere. I have replaced some of the harsher words with [material in brackets] and append here some of Carolyn Porco's corrections:

Interesting review of Benford's book, though the section on the Cassini message is shamelessly wrong. A few facts:

  1. Benford was not a part of the message team. He only contributed the idea to use industrial grade diamond.
  2. It was NASA that decided not to fly the message after my co-lead threatened to sue NASA if the Message was flown.
  3. [Benford's description of the Cassini project in Deep Time] is an inaccurate story, told by a man who wasn't there.. [...] Next time, reserve judgement until you've met and spoken to the individuals involved.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Porco

I hope that this incident will teach me to double-check sources from now on, avoid believing everything I read unconditionally and tone down some rhetoric from now on. Many thanks to Carolyn Porco for her corrections and her graciousness in setting me straight on this matter.]

The book become less interesting as Benford gets on a high environmental soapbox in the last half of the book. The third part still turns around a worthwhile idea, as Benford tells of his proposition to build a "Library of Life", a repository of DNA from most of today's species of plants and animals threatened by extinction. Though not a startlingly original project, Benford uses this as a springboard to other related subjects (conservationism, taxonomy, scientific politics, etc...).

But the fourth quarter grates as it veers off in a well-intentioned, but strikingly unoriginal rant about how humanity is already sending deep-time messages by environment degradation. Though Benford keeps things interesting with little-known facts, the impression left by this section is one of déjà-vu: Not exactly why one would pick up the book in the first place.

Additionally, Benford leaves out an important part of any deep time projection: The very real possibility of increased lifespans and of political stabilization. While this isn't a flaw by itself, this omission does get a bit suspicious after the umpteenth time Benford talk about short human lives. Wouldn't longevity undermine his thesis? Maybe...

Still, despite a rather heavy-handed environmentalist screed in the second half of the book, Benford keeps thing interesting, and Deep Time fulfills the goal of any decent non-fiction science vulgarization: Make us discover thing we didn't know before. Or cared about.

 

 

The Martians
Kim Stanley Robinson

Bantam Spectra, 1999, 336 pages, $35.95 Can., ISBN 0-553-80117-1

All fans of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, please stand up and be counted. Now allow me to explain how the very number of you standing up constitutes an irresistible moneymaking opportunity.

By Science-Fiction standards, the Mars trilogy was an enormously successful work, both popularly, critically and financially. All the books of the series won either the Hugo or the Nebula award and the paperback editions of the book are all well into further printings. All books were bestsellers and have already attained something akin to classical status.

Which, of course, makes it irresistible for both publisher and author to milk out an little "extra". The Martians is the first such extra, a 336-pages book that brings together several short pieces related to the Mars trilogy. You'll find here a few short stories, essays, vignettes, poems...

The book starts with "Michel in Antarctica", a pre-history of the Mars trilogy that ultimately veers in alternate history. This particular parallel world is further explored in "Michel in Provence", though -unfortunately- no more.

Other pieces bring back the characters of the trilogy, often illuminating earlier actions, or simply presenting maybe outtakes from the original text. So we get "Maya and Desmond", "Coyote Makes Trouble", "Jackie on Zo", "Keeping the Flame", "Coyote Remembers" and "Sax Moments".

The Martians reprints two of Robinson's pre-Red Mars Mars stories, "Exploring Fossil Canyon" and the lengthy novella "Green Mars". Both of these stories are part of an alternate mini-cycle further explored here with "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars" (a slight, but fun story about Martian baseball), "What Matters" and "A Martian Romance".

There are also a few unconnected short stories here and there, including "Saving Noctis Dam", "Sexual Dismorphism" and "Enough is as Good as a Feast". We get twice as many unconnected vignettes, some evocative and some decidedly less so.

There are also a few pieces commenting on the trilogy, whether it's "The Constitution of Mars" (annotated), "The Sountrack", selected poems (including one called "A Report on the First Recorded Case of Areophagy") and a final poignant piece titled "Purple Mars", where Robinson may describe his last day of work on the Mars trilogy.

The result is both more and less of what we expected. On one hand, it is a worthwhile companion to the Mars trilogy, presenting more of what made the trilogy so popular. On the other hand, it doesn't present what would have been interesting to see in a companion volume: Non-fiction essays on the conception, the writing, the revision of the series. Original plans. Maps and drafts. More substantial side-stories. As such, it almost approaches the "let's dump cut scenes in the marketplace" approach.

But really, The Martians couldn't be anything but a disappointment for fans of the trilogy, knowing that this is pretty much the last of what Robinson has to say about the place. As such, it's a fitting -if uneven- tribute. Non-fans already suspect that they shouldn't begin here, but fans should be advised that The Martians is a decent sideshow to the main event.

 

 

A Good, Old-Fashioned Future
Bruce Sterling

Bantam Spectra, 1999, 279 pages, $9.99$ Can., ISBN 0-553-57642-9

Readers already familiar with Bruce Sterling's brand of Science-Fiction should smile at the misleading title of his latest short story collection. Because if Sterling is famous for something, it's definitely not for writing "good, old-fashioned" futures.

One only has to take a look at his third novel, Schismatrix (1985) to see the first glimpses of a major talent at representing new and unsettling vistas. Schismatrix was a bold departure for hard-SF at the time, presenting a future that was eerie yet believable, but never too comfortable. His latter novels fulfilled this early promise, from the globe-spanning Island in the Net (1987) to the political satire of Distraction (1998). Sterling was heavily associated with cyberpunk in the eighties, but metastased in the "Wired" crowd during the nineties, constantly staying abreast of the latest trends and technologies.

A Good, Old-Fashioned Future is his third short story collection, and in some ways the best. Unlike Crystal Express, this collection represents Sterling working on his best playground, the globalized, info-rich, chaotic future of true tomorrow. Unlike other authors content to re-use standard SF devices to build up futures more related to past SF than present reality, Sterling is constantly original. The stories in this collection are usually sufficiently well-written to stay interesting all the way through, which wasn't necessarily the case with his previous collections. Sterling's narrative gifts are steadily improving, and with this collection he delivers a book that's simultaneously interesting, colorful, literate and readable.

The Hugo-nominated "Maneki Neko" introduces Sterling's techno-vision particularly well. Here, the net has given rise to a "gift economy" that is undemanding, yet particularly powerful. You might not think too much of doing "one small favor", but the chain of events set in motion by a series of small coordinated event is irresistible. What if every stranger you met did you some small annoyance... wouldn't that be an unbearable day? This story -possibly the strongest of the collection- is a good old crunchy SF idea wrapped in some of the best stylistic packaging you'll find.

"Big Jelly", a collaboration with Rudy Rucker, is less enjoyable, as if the sort-of-satire and the light subject matter somehow couldn't be nailed down by the writing. It's still enjoyable as a parody of infotech venture capitalism, but not much more. It ends in mid-story.

"The Littlest Jackal" is almost a present-day story in terms of technology, but it plays with new sociopolitical ideas and manages to be enjoyable despite its lack of cohesion. The ending is also a problem, but the story isn't bad. Rumor has it that Sterling's next novel will take place in this particular "universe".

"Sacred Cow" is the weakest story of the volume, being neither particularly incisive nor innovative. Rambling and pointless but still readable, proving that even at his worst, Sterling still turns out worthwhile material.

The last three novella-length stories form a loose trilogy. "Deep Eddie" is about the adventures of an American courier in Europe, where he's dragged into a curious conflict between intellectuals, a confrontation that quickly heats up and becomes very physical. "Bicycle Repairman" is about a mechanic who finds himself the target of a government agent when he comes into possession of a subversive television decoder. The last story of the volume is "Taklamakan", an atmospheric -but curiously unsatisfying- trip inside a closed-off top-secret facility.

A Good Old-Fashioned Future delivers no less than four Hugo-nominated and two Hugo-winning stories ("Bicycle Repairman" and "Taklamakan")... so there's some quality to the mix. But the high price of the book coupled with the disappointing number of stories (Seven!) doesn't make it a necessary buy. A good choice for Hugo completists and confirmed Sterling fans, but a library loan for everyone else.

 

 

Clarke County, Space
Allen Steele

Ace, 1990, 231 pages

Labyrinth of Night
Allen Steele

Ace, 1992, 340 pages

Some books are sold by their cover illustration.

I had been fascinated by Labyrinth of Night's cover art ever since I first saw it in a book collection of Bob Eggleton's paintings. It shows, in warm reds and oranges, human astronauts peering over a Martian landscape complete with pyramids and human face sculpted into rock. Never mind that all that Cydonia stuff is silly beyond belief; the cover illustration was lovely.

Both halves of the novel begin after the initial awed look at Cydonia. Humans have investigated the site, and found an interior labyrinth of deadly puzzles. The last one isn't about mathematics or physics, but about music... and so authorities draft one rebel musician to come investigate. While he isn't too pleased to make the Earth/Mars trip, everyone else has bigger problems as things are heating up on Mars between the Russian and the American military forces.

This first part of the novel uses standard narrative segments intercut with pseudo-journalistic excerpts as Steele's universe is introduced to the reader. This device disappears in the latter part of the book, which takes place two years later and could easily constitute a standalone novel by itself. Though Labyrinth of Night isn't a fixup, it does feel like an expansion of an original novella. One could quibble with Steele's unconvincing characterization of military personnel and his knee-jerk antigovernementalism, but the result is still decent hard-SF reading, and that is not something to be dismissed lightly.

Clarke Country, Space doesn't have the benefit of an eye-popping cover, but holds up fairly well on its own. It was published before Labyrinth of Night and technically presents anterior events, though there is not direct link between the two novels. (Even so, a single line in Labyrinth of Night pretty much sums up the aftermath of Clarke County, Space though the event described doesn't happen in the earlier novel.)

Clarke County is a space colony, comfortably hosting humanity's first extraterrestrial community. Discounting the occasional Church of Elvis convention, things are going pretty well. But as it all too often happens with these space colonies, some think that independence would be a Really Good idea... So what do we expect to read? Another Independence-war-story in space, right?

Wrong! For all its setup, back cover blurb and front-cover slogan ("It's a piece of the sky worth fighting for"), Clarke County, Space ends up being a novel about a mafia assassin pursuing his victim on a space colony, and the Navajo sheriff tracking down the killer. Unexpected, isn't it? This novel reads a lot like the first part of Labyrinth of Night, a fast-paced prologue to something bigger. But as most Steele fans know, this shouldn't be interpreted as a rejection; Clarke County, Space is a good read in its own right, with plenty of bigger throwaway pieces cheerfully handed out to the reader in the framing story.

As always, readers of Allen Steele novels can expect some fast-paced adventures, told in a clear and enjoyable prose. Both Clarke County, Space and Labyrinth of Night show very well the strengths (and weaknesses) of this underappreciated hard-SF practitioner.

 

 

Bloom
Wil McCarthy

Del Rey, 1998, 310 pages, ISBN 0-345-40857-8

Many Science Fiction authors are said to be heir to the grandmasters of the field. People are constantly trying to find "the Next Heinlein", with the mantle passing from author to author, stopping by such choices as Spider Robinson, John Varley and John Barnes. Wil McCarthy hasn't widely been recognized as the successor of any Grandmaster, but with Bloom, he evokes fond memories of Arthur C. Clarke's best travelogues.

Indeed, Bloom begins on Ganymede, an orbit away from Imperial Earth's Titan. But where Clarke traveled through a solar system dominated by humans, McCarthy has a much weirder -and dangerous- future in mind.

By design or accident, some nano-critter ("mycora") has managed to eat Earth in classic gray goo fashion. A small fraction of the human population managed to escape on the moon, and then farther out beyond the asteroid belt when it became obvious that mycora was also taking over the entire inner system. So Bloom opens on a solar system whose inner planets are all inhospitable and where humans are holed up here and there in the outer planets. Still, there are occasional incursions of mycora in the human settlements. There much be fought decisively, or else the bloom replicates until it destroys the habitat.

In the middle of all this, high authorities decide that mycora has to be studied, so they send a starship in the inner system, ostensibly to drop off sensors. Our viewpoint character is John Strasheim, part-time journalist and full-time shoe manufacturer. He's not the only one to ask himself what he's doing with the spacemen and scientists making up the remainder of the crew. As they set out for their trip to the inner system, -battling the constant threat of spaceship bloom- the question of whether they can all be trusted is raised, and then precipitated.

The atmosphere of constant paranoia -both external and internal- is part of what makes Bloom so special. The constant threat of mycora when the expedition enters the inner space system is convincingly claustrophobic, creating a real sense of dread for the characters. All of this leads to a few efficient sequences of almost pure terror as all hope seems to be lost and the crew has to fight a seemingly invincible array of threats.

McCarthy sets up his world and his characters effectively, leading up to some interesting situations. The characterization is only adequate, however, as it does take some time to differentiate between the small cast of characters and even then they never really become fully realized. No matter; they're still serviceable in the usual SF fashion.

There are a lot of cool gadgets in Bloom, (like the tickle implant and the fear dolls) and McCarthy is scientifically-literate, so the jargon sounds right. Though not exactly an ultra-hard-SF novel, Bloom does play according to the rules of the genre, and is more convincing because of it. It simply makes sense, even in the action scenes.

Better yet is the simple, direct and enjoyable prose style of the book. The viewpoint character is a part-time journalist used to writing for a layman audience, and the narrative reflects this superbly. Especially fascinating are the snippets of text sent by Stratheim, balancing humor and fear. (Or unsent; see Chapter 19) The book is compulsively readable... a civilian's account of combat in deep territory, a Science-Fiction version of APOCALYPSE NOW.

But like APOCALYPSE NOW it's a slight shame if the conclusion is so disappointing. It would have been interesting to see McCarthy do something more with this predictable finale. As it stands, it's almost as if McCarthy shies away from really interesting revelations.

Still, Bloom is a pretty good SF novel. Fans of McCarthy won't be disappointed by this, his best novel so far, and non-fans might take this opportunity to discover an interesting author. A worthwhile choice for a fun, quick, thoughtful and interesting read... just like the best Clarke novels. Definitely a 1998 core-SF essential.

 

 

Trouble and her Friends
Melissa Scott

1994, Tor, 379 pages, 31.95$, ISBN 0-312-85733-0

Has it already been five years since the end of cyberpunk? Even though only half a decade passed between the release of Trouble and her Friends and me reading it, this novel seems much more dated than even works from the eighties.

The plot is unmistakably cyberpunk as we know it: A hacker retires after the adoption of some stringent anti-hacking laws, leaving her lover as easily as she leaves her old job. A few years later, another hacker steals her name ("Trouble") and attracts unhealthy attention from authorities, who think it's the old Trouble who's doing the jobs. Now Trouble must ally herself with her old lover in order to catch the hacker who stole her name...

Beyond the "closing off the wild west" atmosphere, there's not much new or innovative here. (Any SF novel blurb beginning triumphantly by "In less than a hundred years from now" is hopelessly naive) Compounding the problem of staleness is that Scott is content with recycling the cyberpunk clichés without modification. Of course, the weather is screwed up. Of course, cyberspace is a three-dimensional virtual area filled with colorful shapes. Of course the best hackers plug themselves in the matrix with a direct neural interface. Of course, the big corporations are evil and scheme against governments. Or course... Trouble and her Friends has fewer relevance to the real-world than to the cyberpunk universe first defined by Gibson and his acolytes. Unfortunately, most readers have been there before to see the same things.

No doubt that fans of the book will herald Scott's usage of lesbian protagonists as "fresh and innovative", but is it, really? Sexual definition was a staple of cyberpunk (with the real/online identity dichotomy) well before Trouble and her Friends. And the original cyberpunks had at least more subtlety than to underline their characters with heavy-handed "Boo-hoo, we're gays and everyone hates us" gloom. (Missing the point that in cyberpunk novels everyone hates each other.)

Scott also mixes feminism in her ideological viewpoint... which would have been fine if she hadn't also underlined the idea with big honking "SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION!" authorial messages everywhere in the text. Generally, I find progressive messages more efficient when presented in a matter-of-fact fashion, not the strident "We're persecuted! You're Nazis!" wailing tone of Trouble and her Friends. Scott tries to have it both ways by presenting a far-away future with yesterday's prejudices.

Said far-away (late twenty-first century) future become even more ridiculous when the technologies used are already so primitive compared to what we're anticipating for the next decade. Obviously, Scott is more interested in relationship issues than coherent extrapolation.

Which would have actually been fine if it hadn't dragged down the narrative by at least two hundred extra pages. For its length, not a lot happens in Trouble and her Friends. It takes a long time for the novel to get moving, and sagacious readers will find themselves skimming over the reams of monotonous prose that's simply not worth the trouble: Scott ain't Gibson and this is a wannabee net-novel with your grandma's writing style on Prozac.

Still, even despite the unsubtle sexual politics, dated future, unoriginal extrapolation and stuffy prose, Trouble and her Friends isn't all that bad. Readers of the genre will recognize the place: Kind of a lesbian SF Harlequin. With appropriate skimming, a fun read for a rainy Saturday afternoon.