Neal Asher is a British author, splitting his time between his places in Essex and Crete (I guess we’ll have to see what Brexit does about such arrangements!). He has been publishing SF Novels since 2001 - most of them are set in his Polity universe, where humanity has spread over a large amount of space, and is ruled by a centre of (superficially) beneficent AIs. There are humans outside that sphere, there are borderlands with other species, and there are solar systems trying to go their own way, which leads to frequently violent conflict with Separatists. Any similarities with current political arrangements and wrangles might be entirely coincidental.
Infinity Engine is the final book in a trilogy called Transformation, following the path of development of a rogue AI known as Penny Royal. The earlier two books are called Dark Intelligence, and War Factory, and I would consider The Technician, which set up the scenario for the Trilogy, as an near-integral part of it, too. Overall there are now a substantial number of books available in the Polity universe, spread across time and topics (never mind approaches), and split into individual sub-series. Someone's drawn up a time line, and boy does it help. In terms of this series, though, you don’t have to have read all the books. You could start with Dark Intelligence, or you could pick up The Technician first, and thus get some more background (never mind entertainment) before diving into the trilogy proper. But if not everything I mention in this review makes sense then this is because I’m talking about the final book in a trilogy. Also - of course - anything I give away of the story here is per definition a spoiler for the earlier books - caveat!
Infinity Engine has another point setting it apart - a musician called Steve Buick has composed and recorded an album of original music to go with the book; this is available on evokescape.com. I have not heard it, so cannot comment on how much (or at all) this improves the reading of the book at hand.
Here's a little treat for you, and fresh off the press (virtually only, though):
Uncanny Magazine has, in its November/December issue, a story by Karin Tidbeck called The Bone Plain - talking about running away, about finding your own way, or maybe yourself. And about redemption, maybe.
But read for yourself, the story is not very long, but very much worth reading!
Karin Tidbeck is a Swedish writer of Weird Fiction, sometimes, as is the case here, with a hint of Fantasy (or 70s SF art? I could picture the Bone Plain setting as such!), and a new and exciting voice that you should not miss!
Masterworks is a series, now running to 73 titles, which was originally published by Millennium and is now being continued by Gollancz; consisting of classic SF tales which deserve to be kept in print. Philip K. Dick figures quite large in that run – so far this contains 14 (!) novels from his back catalogue.
Dick, who died in 1982, published 44 novels and 121 short stories over the course of his life; a number of which won awards; the one at hand won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1975.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said takes its title from a lute ayre (look it up!) by John Dowland, written in 1596 (yes, you read that right). One of the main characters loves the song, and quotes it in the story. Its lyrics also open each part of the book. The relationship between the song, its lyrics, and the story and underlying meaning and themes of the book would be the work of a PhD thesis, should one be so inclined (me? Not, sorry.)
The story follows Jason Taverner, a genetically modified human (a Six – presumably that's the sequence of attempted modifications) who is a singer and TV star with a 30 million audience at his weekly show. Except that, after being attacked by a lover/protégé, he comes around in a cheap hotel, and, much worse, in a world where no one remembers him, and where he has no records, papers, or database entries. The latter is bad, as this is a police state, set in a USA after a 2nd civil war. The students (and their teachers), who are hold-outs from the war/coup, are still kettled in their campuses, barricaded in, some under terrible circumstances. This is a near-panopticon world, with pol (Police) and nat (National Guard) road blocks, random checks for ID on the road, with bugs attached to people and clothing (and to ID) sending regular blips with the location and who the owner/wearer is with. And if you don't have ID, or get picked up for the wrong reasons you are off to a labour camp, just like that. Essentially this is as close to a repressive panopticon society as you can get without ubiquitous computing.
Now here’s a book I tried to avoid. Not because I don’t like Neil’s writing, most of it agrees with me, or because I don’t like Mythology, Norse or otherwise (I quite do), but I turned down an electronic review copy because I expected there be endless reams to be written about it (there were indeed), and it to sell like hot cakes anyway, without any publicity by myself (oh, and didn’t it just). Plus, I really have enough to read and write about, or so I thought. Others thought otherwise, though, and so here I am with a signed copy, and, as I’m wont to, an opinion after reading it. Even if it’s been 3 months since the book came out.
So, hype aside, what is this about, then? I mean, Neal has been writing about Norse Mythology, and using its characters and tropes in his oeuvre for a long time - quite openly in the Sandman series, or in Odd and the Frost Giants, but as an influence in many other parts and stories, too. But this here is the full treatment, with focus, of course. And, from his introduction, it sounds like the main aim for him was to share his fascination with this body of mythology, and animate people, many people, to join in and start reading more of the topic.
Also - I really don’t see a point in introducing the author, Neil Gaiman, who has been described as the SF Rockstar before. I don’t think there are any in the current crop of genre writers who have anything like his reach and success in the mainstream - the late Terry Pratchett might have come close, but otherwise you’re going back to Vonnegut, Ballard, or maybe Asimov.
Sometimes the little throw-away things have the biggest impact on your life, or your project; frequently much more than anything we’ve planned out and worked hard towards - I’m sure we’ve all been there! Sydney Padua, the author of ‘The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage *The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer’ might know this even better than most of us. She undertook to draw a very short comic, historically (mostly) accurate, about Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, and during research stumbled over the eccentric genius of Charles Babbage, and his steam powered computer. And as she found the ending to be ‘awfully grim’ (Lovelace went off the rails like her father before her and died young and quite mad, whilst Babbage died a crabby old man who had never finished any of his marvellous calculating engines) she added an alternative one, set in a better universe. Which, to everybody else and the Internet at large, meant that she was now drawing a comic about how their lives played out if they built the Difference Engine, and went on to a life of fighting crime!
“Hundreds of pages of comics later and it’s becoming a little hard to insist, as I still do, that I am not drawing a comic called The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage”
The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross has been a running concern since the release of The Atrocity Archives in 2004, it has progressed from its original blueprint of geeky humour mixed with Lovecraftian horror via the horror of Bureaucracies running Occult Secret Services trying to save the world from, err, the end of the world, to the current crop of stories which are rather darker, and are driving towards whatever the (presumably cataclysmic) conclusion of the series is. The series currently runs to 7 novels plus several short story/novella add-ins so far; The Annihilation Score, the topic of this review, is the 6th book (yes, I’m still one behind), and an 8th instalment, titled The Delirium Brief, is hitting the shops in July 2017. I better get reading…
The Annihilation Score is different to its predecessor in two main points - firstly it deals with Superheroes, instead of the usual more horror-based approach (the horror of Bureaucracies is still present, of course, with added politics), but secondly, and even more of a departure, the main protagonist relating the story is not Bob Howard this time, but his estranged wife Mo O’Brien instead. And, in keeping with this change, we get to hear the story not just of the current outbreak of Superhero powers in the UK (related to the the usual scenario of the walls between realities being eroded dangerously), but we also learn much much more about the relationship between Mo, and her magic violin, Lector. The fact that it has a name, a personality (yes, it’s self-aware), its own goals, needs, and drives, and a sex life (by invading Mo’s dreams…) make for a certain amount of uneasy reading - the sex is less pervy and quite a lot more creepy than it could have been; instead we get massive relationship and jealousy issues towards Bob, who now, with his mentor Angleton dead, is the earthly vessel for the Eater of Souls. Who in turn does not really like Mo, it appears.
“...and what must it be like, to be an alien spirit bound into an instrument carved from the agonised bones of dying men and women, immobile and helplessly dependent on a human host, hungry for experience and thirsty for blood…”
It's a deceptively simple story about withholding personal information from the authorities who, by default, feel entitled to this, and the consequences and complexities this can have if you attempt to live a 'normal' life in an environment which expects you to share and overshare these things.
It's fascinating, thought provoking, and (at least for me) slightly sad. But go read, and make up your own mind!
The illustration which goes with the story is by very talented Illustrator Daniel Stolle
